Ruth Fry

Ruth Fry

Anna Ruth Fry (born September 4, 1878 in Highgate , London , † April 26, 1962 ) was a British Quaker and peace activist.

Life and activity

Fry came from an upper-middle-class Quaker family. Her father was the judge Edward Fry, best known for his membership in the Hague Tribunal of 1907. She was raised and trained at home and then, influenced by her father's activities, began to work as a peace activist: During the South African War ("Boer War") she took over the chairmanship of the South African Committee for Friends Service Council Victim of this war.

During the First World War, Fry became the general secretary of the Friends War Victims Relief Committee. In this position, she traveled to various theaters of war in order to create the conditions for assistance on site. In practice, Quaker Aid dedicated itself in particular to supplying residents of war-affected areas and refugees with food and medicine. Fry retained the post of general secretary of Quaker Aid until 1924 after the war. In the post-war years, the focus of the work of their organization was on supporting the population of areas directly devastated by the war or areas badly damaged economically by it, e.g. B. also of the Ruhr area .

During the great famine that raged in much of Russia in the first years after World War I , Fry served as chairman of the Russian Famine Relief Fund, which was instrumental in organizing food deliveries (especially grain) for the starving population of the Famine involved.

Fry recorded her experiences during the First World War and in Russia in a memory book that was the prelude to a long series of pacifist publications that she published. In addition, Fry served in the 1920s as honorary chairman of the pacifist organization National Council for the Prevention of War and treasurer of the London section of War Resisters' International (1936-1937).

Fonts

• A Quaker Adventure , 1926. (published in German as: Ein Quäker-Wagnis. The adventurous story of a peace campaign in and after the World War , Quäker-Verlag, Nuremberg 1933)
• Emily Hobhouse. A Memor Compiled by A. Ruth Fry , 1929.
• Quaker ways. An Attempt to explain Quaker Beliefs and Practices and to Illustrate them by the Lives and Activities of Friends of former days , London 1933. (in German: Die Weise der Quäker , 1935)
• A Pacifist Replies to the Archbishop of York , 1935.
• The Quakers. Who are They? , 1937.
• The Storm , 1940.
• John Bellers, 1654-1725, Quaker, Economist and Social Reformer, his Writings Reprinted with a Memoir , London 1935.
• The Storm , 1940.
• Three Visits to Russia (1922-25) , 1942.
• 1945. Annus Mirabilis , 1945.
• A Simple Faith , 1951.
• Force and Failure , 1951.
• An Unarmed World , 1954.

literature

• Obituary in The Times , Apr. 28, 1962, p. 12.
• Kerry Walters / Robin Jarrell: Blessed Peacemakers: 365 Extraordinary People Who Changed the World , 2013, pp. 252f.