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It is too hard to choose a favourite historical person, because there are too many interesting people. However, Elizabeth Fry is a woman who deserves to be remembered.
She was born in England in 1780, and grew up in a Quaker family. She was motivated by a strong faith and by humanitarian considerations. She energetically campaigned for improved conditions in prisons and especially for women. Women were held in prison with their children and often alongside men. Conditions were very harsh.
Fry helped to bring about basic improvements in their treatment, so that women were held separately and had employment and schooling for themselves and their children inside. Fry and her colleagues would visit prisons, do readings, and involve prisoners in their discussions about the rules that they had to follow. In the picture below, you can see her reading to a listening group of prisoners.
Fry also worked to improve conditions on the ships which transported female convicts to Australia. She and her colleagues tried to ensure that the women and children would have food and drink on their long voyage, and tools and other useful items which they could use on board and when they finally arrived.
She died in 1845. Fry is one of the great nineteenth century reformers, and until recently, was commemorated on a Bank of England £5.
By John James Hinchliff (1805-1875), engraver«From a Portrait by Mrs Charles Pearson» https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1684713
By Jerry Barrett, 1824-1906 - http://johnjohnson.chadwyck.co.uk/info/durableURLpopup.do?type=article&id=20081204152240kg#urlHeading, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41185202
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