NORTON, CAROLINE (ELIZABETH SARAH)

ne Sheridan born , March 22, 1808, London, Eng. died June 15, 1877, London English poet and novelist whose matrimonial difficulties and her resultant efforts to secure legal protection for married women made her a notorious figure in mid-Victorian society. One of three granddaughters of the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, she began to write while in her teens. In 1827 she made an unfortunate marriage to the Honourable George Norton, whom she left after three years. In retaliation, Norton brought action against her friend Lord Melbourne for seducing his wife. The suit may have been a political move to discredit Melbourne (then prime minister). When the case came to trial in 1836, the evidence was so flimsy that the jury decided against Norton without leaving the courtroom. Norton then refused his wife access to their children, and her outcries against this injustice were instrumental in introducing the Infant Custody Bill, which was finally carried in 1839. In 1855 she was again involved in a lawsuit because her husband not only refused to pay her allowance but demanded the proceeds of her books. Her eloquent letter of protest to Queen Victoria had great influence on the Marriage and Divorce Act of 1857, abolishing some of the inequities to which married women were subject. Among her contemporaries, Mrs. Norton held a high literary reputation. The Dream, and Other Poems appeared in 1840 to critical enthusiasm, and Aunt Carry's Ballads (1847), dedicated to her nephews and nieces, was written with tenderness and grace. Her novelsStuart of Dunleath (1851), Lost and Saved (1863), and Old Sir Douglas (1867) were based on her own unhappy experiences. After her husband's death in 1875, she married Sir William Stirling-Maxwell.