<P> Elizabeth Fry also campaigned for the rights and welfare of prisoners who were being transported . The women of Newgate Prison were taken through the streets of London in open carts, often in chains, huddled together with their few possessions . They were pelted with rotten food and filth by the people of the city . The fear was often enough to make women condemned to transportation riot on the evening before . Fry's first action was to persuade the Governor of Newgate prison to send the women in closed carriages and spare them this last indignity before transportation . She visited prison ships and persuaded captains to implement systems to ensure each woman and child would at least get a share of food and water on the long journey . Later she arranged each woman to be given scraps of material and sewing tools so that they could use the long journey to make quilts and have something to sell as well as useful skills when they reached their destination . She also included a bible and useful items such as string and knives and forks in this vital care package . Elizabeth Fry visited 106 transport ships and saw 12,000 convicts . Her work helped to start a movement for the abolition of transportation . Transportation was officially abolished in 1837, however Elizabeth Fry was still visiting transportation ships until 1843 . </P> <P> Elizabeth Fry wrote in her book Prisons in Scotland and the North of England that she stayed the night in some of the prisons and invited nobility to come and stay and see for themselves the conditions prisoners lived in . Her kindness helped her gain the friendship of the prisoners and they began to try to improve their conditions for themselves . Thomas Fowell Buxton, Fry's brother - in - law, was elected to Parliament for Weymouth and began to promote her work among his fellow MPs . In 1818 Fry gave evidence to a House of Commons committee on the conditions prevalent in British prisons, becoming the first woman to present evidence in Parliament . </P> <P> Elizabeth Fry also helped the homeless, establishing a "nightly shelter" in London after seeing the body of a young boy in the winter of 1819 / 1820 . In 1824, during a visit to Brighton, she instituted the Brighton District Visiting Society . The society arranged for volunteers to visit the homes of the poor and provide help and comfort to them . The plan was successful and was duplicated in other districts and towns across Britain . </P> <P> Elizabeth Fry used her influential network and worked with other prominent Quakers to campaign for the abolition of the slave trade . </P>

Ladies society for promoting the reformation of female prisoners in the u.k