Caroline Norton facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Caroline Norton
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Caroline Norton, by Sir George Hayter in 1832
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| Born |
Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Sheridan
22 March 1808 |
| Died | 15 June 1877 (aged 69) London, England
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| Nationality | British |
| Known for | Social reformer, writer |
| Title | Lady Stirling-Maxwell (1877) |
| Spouse(s) |
George Chapple Norton
(m. 1827; died 1875) |
| Parent(s) | Thomas Sheridan Caroline Henrietta Sheridan |
Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton, Lady Stirling-Maxwell (22 March 1808 – 15 June 1877) was an active English social reformer and author. Norton's campaigning led to the passage of the Custody of Infants Act 1839, the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 and the Married Women's Property Act 1870. She modelled for the fresco of Justice in the House of Lords by Daniel Maclise, who chose her as a famous victim of injustice.
Contents
Youth and marriage
Caroline Norton was born in London to Thomas Sheridan and the novelist Caroline Henrietta Callander. Her father was an actor, soldier and colonial administrator, the son of the prominent Irish playwright and Whig statesman Richard Brinsley Sheridan and his wife Elizabeth Ann Linley. Caroline's Scottish mother was the daughter of a landed gentleman, Col. Sir James Callander of Craigforth and Lady Elizabeth MacDonnell, sister of an Irish peer, the 1st Marquess of Antrim. Mrs Sheridan authored three short novels described by one of her daughter's biographers as "rather stiff with the style of the eighteenth century, but none without a certain charm and wit...."
In 1817, her father died in South Africa while serving as colonial secretary at the Cape of Good Hope. His family was left almost penniless. Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, an old friend of her grandfather's, arranged for them to live at Hampton Court Palace in a "grace and favour" apartment for several years.
The combined beauty and accomplishments of the Sheridan sisters led to their being collectively referred to as the Three "Graces". The eldest, Helen, was a songwriter who married Price Blackwood, the 4th Baron Dufferin and Claneboye. Through her Norton became the aunt of Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, later the third Governor General of Canada and eighth Viceroy of India. Her younger sister, Georgiana, seen as the prettiest, later married Edward Seymour, 12th Duke of Somerset.
In 1827, she married George Chapple Norton, barrister, M.P. for Guildford, and the younger brother of Lord Grantley. George was a jealous and possessive husband. The union quickly proved unhappy. To make matters worse, George was unsuccessful as a barrister and the couple fought bitterly over money.
During her early married years, Norton used her beauty, wit and political ties to set herself up as a major society hostess. Her unorthodox behaviour and candid conversation raised many eyebrows in 19th-century English high society; she made enemies and admirers in almost equal measure. Among her friends were such literary and political luminaries as Samuel Rogers, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Trelawny, Abraham Hayward, Mary Shelley, Fanny Kemble, Benjamin Disraeli, the future King Leopold I of Belgium and William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire. She also claimed in later life to have taken part in the Tolpuddle Martyrs protest march in 1834.
Despite his jealousy and pride, George encouraged his wife to use her ties to advance his career. It was through her influence that in 1831 he was made a Metropolitan Police Magistrate. During those years, Norton turned to prose and poetry as means of releasing her inner emotions and earning money. Her first book, The Sorrows of Rosalie (1829), was well received. The Undying One (1830), a romance founded on the legend of the Wandering Jew, soon followed. From 1832 to 1837 she edited The Court Magazine and Belle Assemblée. In 1843 she petitioned Sir Robert Peel for the post of Poet Laureate after the death of Robert Southey, but was unsuccessful.
Political activity
Norton soon faced an additional tragedy; the death of her youngest son, William, in 1842. Her husband George, who had custody of the children after their breakup, realising that the child was near death, sent for Caroline. Unfortunately, William died before she arrived in Scotland. Caroline blamed George for the child's death, accusing him of neglect. After William's death, George allowed Caroline to visit their sons, but he retained full custody and all of her visits were supervised.
Due to her dismal domestic situation, Norton became deeply 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) centred on her political views.
When Parliament debated divorce reform in 1855, Norton submitted to members a detailed account of her own marriage, and described the difficulties faced by women as the result of existing laws.
Mainly through Norton's intense campaigning, which included a letter to Queen Victoria, Parliament passed the Custody of Infants Act 1839, the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 and the Married Women's Property Act 1870, which she worked on with the suffragist Barbara Bodichon. One recent biographer, Diane Atkinson, notes that unlike in 1839 and 1857, Norton played no part in campaigning for the 1870 Act. Under the Custody of Children Act, legally separated or divorced wives, could be granted the custody of their children up to the age of seven, and periodic access thereafter. The Act applied in England, Wales and Ireland only. While Norton could have hoped for custody of her youngest son, and access to her older sons who were seven and ten when the Act was passed into law, her husband insisted that they stay in Scotland.
The Act gave married women, for the first time, a right to their children. However, because women needed to petition in the Court of Chancery, in practice few women had the financial means to exert their rights. The Matrimonial Causes Act reformed the law on divorce, among others making divorce more affordable, and established a model of marriage based on contract. The Married Women's Property Act 1870 allowed married women to inherit property and take court action on their own behalf. The Act granted married women in the UK, for the first time, a separate legal identity from their husband.
In 1849 Daniel Maclise finished his fresco of Justice in the House of Lords, for which Norton had modelled. He chose her as one seen by many as a famous victim of injustice. Norton's old friend Lord Melbourne opposed the reforms she fought for. He was scolded for his opposition by Queen Victoria; the Queen wrote that he defended his actions, stating: "I don't think you should give a woman too much right... there should not be two conflicting powers... a man ought to have the right in a family."
While Norton fought to extend women's legal rights, she eschewed further social activism and had no interest in the 19th-century women's movement on issues such as women's suffrage. In fact, in an article published in The Times in 1838, she countered a claim that she was a "radical": "The natural position of woman is inferiority to man. Amen! That is a thing of God's appointing, not of man's devising. I believe it sincerely, as part of my religion. I never pretended to the wild and ridiculous doctrine of equality."
Later life
Norton is said to have had a relationship a prominent Conservative politician Sidney Herbert in the early 1840s, but Herbert married another woman in 1846. In middle age, she befriended the author George Meredith. She served as the inspiration for Diana Warwick, the intelligent, fiery-tempered heroine of Meredith's novel Diana of the Crossways, published in 1885. Norton finally became free with George's death in 1875. She married an old friend, the Scottish historical writer and politician Sir W. Stirling Maxwell in March 1877. Norton died in London three months later.
Family and descendants
Norton's eldest son, Fletcher Norton, died of tuberculosis in Paris at the age of 30. She was devastated by the loss.
In 1854, her remaining son, Thomas Brinsley Norton, married a young Italian, Maria Chiara Elisa Federigo, whom he met in Naples. Thomas also suffered from poor health, and spent much of his life as an invalid, reliant upon his mother for financial assistance. Despite this, he lived long enough to succeed his uncle as 4th Baron Grantley of Markenfield. Lord Grantley also predeceased his mother, dying in 1877.
His son, John, inherited the title and estates. The 5th Lord Grantley was a numismatist, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Royal Numismatic Society and the British Numismatic Society. He assembled a large collection of coins and grew orchids. John Norton got married in 1879. His wife Katharine went on to become a successful London hostess.
Commemoration
In April 2021 English Heritage announced that Norton was one of six women to be honoured that year with a blue plaque marking her central London home for over 30 years. It was unveiled on 3 Chesterfield Street, Mayfair by Antonia Fraser.
Work
Political pamphlets
- A Voice from the Factories, 1836
- Separation of Mother and Child by the Laws of Custody of Infants Considered, 1837
- A Plain Letter to the Lord Chancellor on the Infant Custody Bill, 1839
- Letters to the Mob, 1848
- English Laws for Women in the Nineteenth Century, 1854
- A Letter to the Queen on Lord Chancellor Cranworth's Marriage & Divorce Bill, 1855
- A Review of the Divorce Bill of 1856, with propositions for an amendment of the laws affecting married persons, 1857
Poetry collections
- The Sorrows of Rosalie: A Tale with Other Poems, 1829
- I Do Not Love Thee, 1829
- The Cold Change, 1829
- The Undying One and Other Poems, 1830
- The Faithless Knight, 1830
- The Dream, and Other Poems, 1840
- The Child of the Islands, 1845
- Aunt Carry's Ballads for Children, 1847
- Bingen on the Rhine, undated: "Copyrighted 1883 by Porter & Coates, Philadelphia"
- The Centenary Festival, 1859
- The Lady of La Garaye, 1862
Novels
- The Dandies Rout, 1825
- The Wife, and Woman's Reward, 3 vols, 1835
- Stuart of Dunleath, 1851
- Lost and Saved, 3 vols, 1863
- Old Sir Douglas. 3 vols, 1866
Plays
- The Gypsy Father, 1830
- Vathek, based on the novel by William Beckford, 1830. In the Notes & Queries issue of March 2017, 86–95 ("The Lost Manuscript of Caroline Norton's Vathek"), Robert J. Gemmett provides compelling evidence that Norton's manuscript of this play may have survived.
See also
In Spanish: Caroline Norton para niños
