Caroline Norton
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Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (22 March 1808 – 15 June 1877) was a famous British society beauty, feminist, social reformer, and author of the early and mid nineteenth century.
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[edit] Youth and Marriage
Caroline was born in London, England to Thomas Sheridan and Caroline Henrietta Sheridan née Callander. Her father was an actor, soldier, and colonial administrator, and the son of the prominent Irish playwright and Whig statesman Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Her mother was the author of three novels.
In 1817, Thomas died in South Africa. Caroline afterwards lived in a Hampton Court Palace "grace and favour" apartment with her mother, four brothers and two sisters. The sisters' combined beauty and accomplishments led to their being collectively called the Three "Graces". [1] Her older sister, Helen, was a song-writer who married the 4th Baron Dufferin and Claneboye. Through her, Caroline became the aunt of the 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, who later served as the third Governor General of Canada and eighth Viceroy of India. Her younger sister, Georgiana, considered the prettiest of the three, later became the Duchess of Somerset.
In 1827, Caroline married the Hon. George Chapple Norton, the brother of Lord Grantley, a union which quickly proved unhappy due to Norton's mental and physical abuse of his wife. A rigid, conventional man, Norton could not understand either Caroline's intellectual curiosity or her nonconformist vivaciousness.
During the early years of her marriage, despite her husband's misgivings, Caroline used her beauty, wit and family's Whig political connections to establish herself as a major society hostess. She became a friend to such literary and political luminaries of the era as Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Trelawney, Fanny Kemble, Benjamin Disraeli, the future King Leopold I of Belgium and William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire. Social convention, however, did not allow her to publicly express the growing dissatisfaction she was feeling for her brutish, mentally unstimulating husband. In response, she turned to prose and poetry as a means of releasing her inner emotions. Her first book, The Sorrows of Rosalie (1829), was well received. The Undying One (1830), a romance founded upon the legend of the Wandering Jew soon followed.
[edit] Separation and Melbourne Scandal
In 1835, Caroline left her husband. He removed her children from her in revenge, and accused her having an affair with her close friend, Lord Melbourne, the then Whig Prime Minister. Norton also demanded £1400 from Melbourne, who refused to be blackmailed, so he then accused the Prime Minister in court. In 1836 he challenged him to a duel, in which Lord Melbourne was slightly wounded. The resulting publicity almost brought down the government. After Norton was unable to produce evidence of a liaison, the scandal died away. Despite this turn of events, Norton continued to prevent Caroline from seeing her three sons and blocked her from receiving a divorce.
[edit] Political Activity
Due to her dismal domestic situation, Caroline became passionately involved in the passage of laws promoting social justice, especially those granting rights to married and divorced women. Her poems, A Voice from the Factories (1836), and The Child of the Islands (1845), had as their object the furtherance of her political views. Her efforts were largely successful in bringing about needed legislation. Primarily because of her intense campaigning, Parliament passed the Custody of Infants Act 1839 and the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857. Under the new law, married women could inherit property and take court action on their own behalf. Caroline Norton formed the basis of what Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon campaigned successfully later.
[edit] Work
[edit] Political Pamphlets
- 1837 Separation of Mother and Child by the Laws of Custody of Infants Considered
- 1836 A Voice from the Factories
- 1839 A Plain Letter to the Lord Chancellor on the Infant Custody Bill
- 1848 Letters to the Mob
- 1854 English Laws for Women in the Nineteenth Century
- 1855 A Letter to the Queen on Lord Chancellor Cranworth's Marriage & Divorce Bill
- 1857 A Review of the Divorce Bill of 1856, with propositions for an amendment of the laws affecting married persons
[edit] Poems (Selection)
- 1829 The Sorrows of Rosalie: A Tale with Other Poems
- I Do Not Love Thee
- The Cold Change
- 1830 The Undying One and Other Poems
- The Faithless Knight
- 1840 The Dream and Other Poems
- 1845 The Child of the Islands
- 1847 Aunt Carry's Ballads for Children
- Bingen on the Rhine, John Walker & Co., undated.
- 1859 The Centenary Festival
- 1862 The Lady of La Garaye
[edit] Novels
- 1825 The Dandies Rout
- 1835 The Wife, and Woman's Reward
- 1851 Stuart of Dunleath
- 1863 Lost and Saved
- 1866 Old Sir Douglas
[edit] Plays
- 1830 The Gypsy Father
- Vathek (based on the novel by William Beckford)
[edit] Later life
Unable to divorce her husband, Caroline engaged in a secret five year affair with prominent Conservative politician Sidney Herbert in the early 1840s which ended with his marriage to another in 1846. She finally became free with the death of George Norton in 1875. In March 1877, Caroline married Scottish historical writer and politician Sir W. Stirling Maxwell. She died three months later.
She was portrayed as "Justice" in a mural by Daniel Maclise when the House of Lords was redecorated in the 1840s.
A friend of author George Meredith in her later years, she became the inspiration for the character of Diana Warwick in his novel Diana of the Crossways, which was published in 1885.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Kemble, p. 173
[edit] References
- Kemble, Fanny The Records of a Girlhood N.Y.: Holt, 1879. googlebooks Retrieved March 2, 2008
- Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. LII, London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1897. (p. 85)googlebooks Accessed March 2, 2008
- Chedzoy, Alan A Scandalous Woman, The Story of Caroline Norton (London, 1992) [1]
- Norton, Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Sheridan. English Laws for Women in the Nineteenth Century. London: [s.n.], 1854. (reprinted as Caroline Norton's Defense: English Laws for Women in the 19th Century. Chicago, Ill: Academy Chicago, 1982.)
- This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J. M. Dent & sons; New York, E. P. Dutton.
[edit] See also
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Caroline Norton |
[edit] External links
- Works at The Victorian Women Writers Project
- Biography of Caroline Norton at Spartacus Schoolnet
- Biography of Caroline Norton at A Celebration of Women Writers
- Free audiobook of "I Do Not Love Thee" from LibriVox
- Article, 12 June 2006, The Guardian
- A Letter to the Queen
- Archival material relating to Caroline Norton listed at the UK National Register of Archives
