98. A Conservative Reformer

Reformers were on the move. Elizabeth Fry was notable as a woman speaking out in a man’s world, campaigning for prison reform, especially for women prisoners. But there were many others, notably the Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who found a strange way of having his body dealt with after death. A slightly ghoulish way.

But whatever clarion voices campaigned for reform outside Parliament, real change could only come from inside, and specifically from Ministers. And this led to a strange phenomenon: some first steps towards essential reforms being taken by a man whose reputation was as anything but a reformer. He was the new Home Secretary, and he was taking a highly innovative approach to public opinion, one much closer to politicians’ attitudes in our own times.

That’s Robert Peel storming back onto the scene.

Illustration: The reformer and champion of women prisoners, Elizabeth Fry, by Samuel Drummond, ca. 1815. National Portrait Gallery 118.

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License