Josiah Forster was an English teacher and philanthropist. He was an early member of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839 and a supporter of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Both he and his wife were senior figures in the British Quakers.

Elizabeth Fry, sometimes referred to as Betsy Fry, was an English prison reformer, social reformer, philanthropist and Quaker. Fry was a major driving force behind new legislation to improve the treatment of prisoners, especially female inmates, and as such has been called the "Angel of Prisons". She was instrumental in the 1823 Gaols Act which mandated sex-segregation of prisons and female warders for female inmates to protect them from sexual exploitation. Fry kept extensive diaries, in which she wrote explicitly of the need to protect female prisoners from rape and sexual exploitation.