English Laws for Women in the Nineteenth Century

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (1808-1877) was a famous British society beauty and author of the early and mid nineteenth century. In 1827, she married the Honourable George Chapple Norton, a union which quickly proved unhappy. 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. 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).