Margery Fry

Sara Margery Fry (born March 11, 1874 in London , † April 21, 1958 ) was a British social reformer.

Life and activity

Fry was the eighth child of Edward Fry and his wife Mariabella Hodgkin (1833–1930). Her older brother was the artist Roger Fry . She was educated at home until she was sent to Miss Lawrence's School in Brighton when she was seventeen. From 1894, she studied mathematics at Somerville College of Oxford University .

In 1899 Fry was given a position as a librarian in Somerville, where she stayed until 1904. In 1904 she became the director of a residential building for female students at Birmingham University . After becoming financially independent through an inheritance in 1913, she left this position in 1914.

During the First World War, Fry played a leading role in organizing Quaker aid for Marne areas devastated by the events of the First World War.

After the end of World War I, Fry began to devote herself to social reform activities, with the emphasis of her efforts on the development of plans for reforming the British penal system and the implementation thereof: As early as 1918 she was secretary of the League for the Reform of the Penal System (Penal Reform League). This merged in 1921 with the Howard Association to form the Howard League for Penal Reform . In this larger new organization, Fry was also given the role of secretary, which she held until 1926. In connection with this activity, she was also appointed official advisor to Holloway Prison , a women's prison near London , in 1922 . As part of their work to reform the UK penal system, Fry et al. a. for the abolition of the death penalty.

In 1919, Fry was given a seat on the newly created University Grants Committee, of which she was a member until 1948. In 1921, she was one of the first women in Great Britain to hold a post as magistrate .

In 1926, Fry returned to her old place of study and work as the director of Somerville College.

In the years 1937 to 1939 Fry held a leading position as governor at the BBC.

Because of her position with the BBC, Fry was targeted by the National Socialist police officers, who classified her as an important target in 1940 at the latest: In the spring of 1940, the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin put her on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people whom the Nazi surveillance apparatus considered particularly dangerous or considered important, which is why, in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht, they should be located and arrested by special SS units following the occupation forces with special priority.

After her death, the Fry Housing Trust was set up at Oxford University in 1959 to finance student housing, while a building at Somerville College, used to house doctoral students, was named Margery Fry House in her honor. In 1990 the Margery Fry Award was also created.

literature

• Thomas L Hodgkin: "Margery Fry", in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Entry on Fry on the special search gun list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London) .