Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton

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Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (1808 - 1877), was a famous British society beauty and author of the early nineteenth century. Caroline was born on March 22, 1808 in London, England. She was born the second daughter of Thomas Sheridan, the son of prominent Irish playwright and Whig statesman Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751 - 1816). In 1827 she married the Hon. George Chapple Norton, the brother of Lord Grantley, a union which proved unhappy due to Norton's mental and physical abuse of his wife. 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 followed.

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 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.

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. Norton demanded £1400 from Melbourne, and when he was turned down he accused the Prime Minister of having an affair with his wife. The resulting publicity surrounding the event almost brought down the government. After Mr. 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.

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).

Unable to divorce her husband, Caroline engaged in a secret five year affair with prominent Conservative politician Sidney Herbert in the early 1840's 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 Sir W. Stirling Maxwell. She died three months later.

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.

Her older sister, Helen Selina Sheridan, married the 4th Baron Dufferin and Claneboye. Through her, Caroline was the aunt of the 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, who served as the third Governor General of Canada and eighth Viceroy of India.

Her younger sister, Jane Georgiana Sheridan, married the 12th Duke of Somerset.

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.