Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (1808 - 1877), was a famous
British society beauty and author of the early and mid nineteenth century.
Youth and Marriage
Caroline was born on March 22, 1808 in London, England. She
was the second daughter of Thomas Sheridan (1775-1817), an actor, soldier, and colonial administrator, who was the son of
prominent Irish playwright and Whig
statesman Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751 -
1816). Her mother was Caroline Henrietta Sheridan (1779–1851), a novelist.
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." 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.
Separation and Melbourne Scandal
In 1835, Caroline left her husband due to his violent temper. In revenge, he removed her children from her and accused her
having an affair with her close friend, Lord Melbourne, the
Whig Prime Minister at the time. In addition, Norton demanded £1400 from Melbourne.
When Melbourne refused to be blackmailed, Caroline's husband then accused the Prime Minister in court. The resulting publicity
surrounding the case almost brought down the government. After Norton was unable to produce any evidence of a liaison, however,
the scandal died away. Despite this turn of events, Norton continued to prevent Caroline from seeing her three sons and
successfully blocked her from receiving a divorce.
Writing and 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 1839 Infant Custody
Bill and the 1857 Divorce Act. At the same time, she continued to write in order to generate an income. Novels from her later
life were Stuart of Dunleath (1851), Lost and Saved (1863), and Old Sir Douglas (1867).
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 of 1877, Caroline married Scottish historical writer and politician Sir W. Stirling Maxwell. She died three months later on June
15, 1877.
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.
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.
Select bibliography
- Alan Chedzoy, A Scandalous Woman, The Story of Caroline Norton (London, 1992) [1]
- English laws for women in the nineteenth century, 1854. (reprinted as Caroline Norton's defence Academy, Chicago
1982)
- Letter to the Queen, 1855
See also
Wikisource has original works written by or about:
History of feminism
External links
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