The Tin Ticket_ The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women - Deborah J. Swiss [39]
Minds numbed by the January cold, the mob paused to consider the Quaker’s request. A momentary reprieve of silence reverted to Newgate’s cacophony: the hollow cough of tuberculosis, the whimper of a sick baby, moaning, bickering, and the occasional piercing wail of the insane. The women with the sunken eyes and yellowed teeth searched to understand Mrs. Fry’s intention. It was puzzling to receive an offer of hope, but the initial shock soon dissipated, and the throng began to speak all at once.
Quickly the group reached consensus and despair dissolved into eager anticipation of the touch and scent of clean cotton against the skin. This was the first wish for the half-dressed women in torn and filthy rags. The indignity of near nakedness tugged at them in a way that an empty stomach did not. If Mrs. Fry could do anything, their first request would be for clean clothes. A simple shift would suffice.
Mrs. Fry promised the women she would return with a dress for each of them. Anna, silent throughout the visit, spontaneously fell to her knees and began to pray. Elizabeth joined her friend in divine supplication. Several of the prisoners followed, kneeling rather awkwardly on the wet floor. In the eerie darkness, the embossed gold lettering on Fry’s Quaker Bible flashed through Newgate’s shadows. Stillness enveloped the cell in a dreamlike state of heavenly quiet. Elizabeth described it in her diary: “I heard weeping, and I thought they appeared much tendered; a very solemn quiet was observed; it was a striking scene, the poor people on their knees around us, in their deplorable condition.”11
In the early nineteenth century, Quaker views of the poor differed radically from those of other Christians. It was every Friend’s challenge to lift people up, whereas the prevailing Church of England view considered poverty a condition of sin resulting from the indigent’s own wickedness and self-damnation. Early Quakers had been persecuted vigorously throughout Europe. In England alone, fourteen thousand were imprisoned during the reign of Charles II, the “merry monarch” who ascended the throne in 1660. During that time, members of the Society of Friends were stripped naked, placed in stocks, publicly whipped, and gaoled for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the Church of England. At the same time, its members in the American colonies were executed for practicing their religion. The most famous Quaker of all, founder George Fox, had been imprisoned at London’s Newgate Prison, as had William Penn, the Quaker who established the state of Pennsylvania.
Swept into a rising crest of evangelism that defied the traditional British view, Elizabeth and Anna felt obligated to help “the wretched” heal both body and soul. Although Mrs. Fry believed that words from her Bible brought the gaoled closer to the Lord and to redemption, she might well have recited Shakespeare and achieved a similar reaction. For most Newgate women, religion played no part in their lives. Still, they were drawn to the Quaker minister who read to them, enthralled by stories strange and new. A few dared to ask aloud, “Who is Christ?”12 Never before had they heard this name. Even so, the ragged souls found themselves inspired by Fry’s kindness. Seduced by the rhythmic cadence in her voice and the serene softness in her eyes, the female prisoners found momentary escape in the soothing beauty of her words. No sooner had the women begun to feel comfortable than the visit was over. The turnkey swung open the gate and beckoned the two do-gooders to retreat. Mrs. Fry promised the women she would return, although few