Letters poured in from all parts of the country, asking her to come to their prisons for a similar work, or to teach others how to work.  A committee of the House of Commons summoned her before them to learn her suggestions, and to hear of her methods; and later the House of Lords.

Of course the name of Elizabeth Fry became known everywhere.  Queen Victoria gave her audience, and when she appeared in public, everybody was eager to look at her.  The newspapers spoke of her in the highest praise.  Yet with a beautiful spirit she writes in her journal, “I am ready to say in the fulness of my heart, surely ’it is the Lord’s doing, and marvellous in our eyes’; so many are the providential openings of various kinds.  Oh! if good should result, may the praise and glory of the whole be entirely given where it is due by us, and by all, in deep humiliation and prostration of spirit.”

Mrs. Fry’s heart was constantly burdened with the scenes she witnessed.  The penal laws were a caricature on justice.  Men and women were hanged for theft, forgery, passing counterfeit money, and for almost every kind of fraud.  One young woman, with a babe in her arms, was hanged for stealing a piece of cloth worth one dollar and twenty-five cents!  Another was hanged for taking food to keep herself and little child from starving.  It was no uncommon thing to see women hanging from the gibbet at Newgate, because they had passed a forged one-pound note (five dollars).

George Cruikshank in 1818 was so moved at one of these executions that he made a picture which represented eight men and three women hanging from the gallows, and a rope coiled around the faces of twelve others.  Across the picture were the words, “I promise to perform during the issue of Bank-notes easily imitated ... for the Governors and Company of the Bank of England.”

He called the picture a “Bank-note, not to be imitated.”  It at once created a great sensation.  Crowds blocked the street in front of the shop where it was hung.  The pictures were in such demand that Cruikshank sat up all night to etch another plate.  The Gurneys, Wilberforce, Sir Samuel Romilly, Sir James Mackintosh, all worked vigorously against capital punishment, save, possibly, for murder.

Among those who were to be executed was Harriet Skelton, who, for the man she loved, had passed forged notes.  She was singularly open in face and manner, confiding, and well-behaved.  When she was condemned to death, it was a surprise and horror to all who knew her.  Mrs. Fry was deeply interested.  Noblemen went to see her in her damp, dark cell, which was guarded by a heavy iron door.  The Duke of Gloucester went with Mrs. Fry to the Directors of the Bank of England, and to Lord Sidmouth, to plead for her, but their hearts were not to be moved, and the poor young girl was hanged.  The public was enthusiastic in its applause for Mrs. Fry, and unsparing in its denunciation of Sidmouth.  At last the obnoxious laws were changed.