Caroline Fry

• Name — Caroline Fry • Born — 31 December 1787 • Died — 17 September 1846 • Spouse — William Wilson

She was one of ten children born to John and Jane Fry. She married William Wilson at Desford, Leicestershire on 26 May 1831. Fry's family was affiliated with the "High Church" in the Church of England. Her brother John Fry (1775 – 1849) attended Oxford University and later became rector of Desford parish. He also wrote a number of Christian books. He was instrumental in educating his sister in theological matters emphasizing an evangelical faith that influenced Caroline and others of her family to abandon their "high-and-dry" religious convictions for a more fervent evangelical piety. Caroline Fry's conversion experience as a young adult in 1822 is recorded in her Autobiography, as inserted as an introduction to her book entitled, Christ Our Example. Fry has produced an impressive list of publications over her life as listed below. She began her professional writing career in 1823 by writing a monthly periodical called the Assistant of Education, Religious and Literary, which she intended for the education of children. In addition to writing church theology, she wrote devotional meditations, prayers, poetry and recounted moral lessons one might learn from the life stories of people she encountered in her travels throughout the English countryside published in two volumes entitled, The Listener. Fry can rightfully be considered a church theologian, a writer, a poet and a Christian educator—someone who wrote from a staunch Reformed perspective on a variety of theological issues. In her book, The Listener in Oxford she describes herself as someone predestined to arrive "at the very birth-time" of conflict. Her anguish was due to the major theological differences creating strife between the newly formed Tractarian movement led by John Henry Newman, John Keble and Edward Bouverie Pusey and the existing parties of the Church of England. Her description of the Oxford lectures give readers a unique insight as to what impact the Anglo-Catholic movement was having upon the Church during a difficult time of transition, especially in her book entitled, The Table of the Lord, addressing divisive issues held by opposing parties in regard to the theology of the sacraments. Sir Thomas Lawrence painted a famous portrait of her in 1827.