May 21st: Elizabeth Fry

On this date in 1780 (two days after Dark Day!) Elizabeth Gurney was born. At 20, she married Joseph Fry and became Elizabeth Fry. She is best known for prison reform. Since 2002, she has been depicted on the Bank of England £5 note. Here are 10 things you may not know about Elizabeth Fry:

1. Her father and husband were both bankers, and on her mother's side is related to the Barclays, who founded Barclays bank.
2. Although most famous for prison reform, she also founded a homeless shelter and a school for nurses. The latter inspired Florence Nightingale, who chose nurses trained at Fry's school to go with her to the Crimean War.
3. Elizabeth Fry found time to do all her humanitarian work despite having eleven children!
4. She was also a Quaker minister.
5. Elizabeth Fry was the first woman to give evidence to Parliament when, in 1818, she spoke to a House of Commons committee about conditions in British prisons.
6. During her lifetime, she had some high profile and influential admirers who took interest in her work, including Robert Peel, the King of Prussia and Queen Victoria.
7. On the £5 note, she is shown reading to prisoners at Newgate prison, and the design includes a key, recognising the fact that she was awarded a key to the prison in recognition of her work.
8. In 2002, on Elizabeth Fry's birthday, the then new £5 note was temporarily suspended by the Bank of England because the serial numbers could be rubbed off the varnished paper.
9. There is a Terracotta bust of her in the gatehouse of HMP Wormwood Scrubs and a stone statue of her in the Old Bailey.
10. When she died in 1845, over a thousand people attended her funeral. Seamen of the Ramsgate Coast Guard flew their flag at half mast, something they had only ever done for reigning monarchs before. Then, the Lord Mayor of London proposed an asylum, the Elizabeth Fry Refuge, in her memory to be built in Hackney.