Caroline Norton left her husband, who was accused by many of coercive behaviour, in 1836.
20 Facts About Caroline Norton
2.
Caroline Norton modelled for the fresco of Justice in the House of Lords by Daniel Maclise, who chose her as a famous victim of injustice.
3.
Caroline Norton was born in London to Thomas Sheridan and the novelist Caroline Henrietta Callander.
4.
Caroline Norton's 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.
5.
Caroline Norton claimed in later life to have taken part in the Tolpuddle Martyrs protest march in 1834.
6.
Caroline Norton managed to subsist on her earnings as an author, but George claimed these as his, arguing this successfully in court.
7.
The scandal eventually died, but not before Caroline Norton's reputation was ruined and her friendship with Melbourne destroyed.
8.
George continued to keep Caroline Norton from seeing her three sons and blocked her from receiving a divorce.
9.
Under English law in 1836, children were the legal property of their father and there was little Caroline Norton could do to regain custody.
10.
Caroline Norton soon faced an additional tragedy; the death of her youngest son, William, in 1842.
11.
Caroline Norton blamed George for the child's death, accusing him of neglect.
12.
When Parliament debated divorce reform in 1855, Caroline Norton submitted to members a detailed account of her own marriage, and described the difficulties faced by women as the result of existing laws.
13.
Mainly through Caroline 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.
14.
One recent biographer, Diane Atkinson, notes that unlike in 1839 and 1857, Caroline Norton played no part in campaigning for the 1870 Act.
15.
Caroline Norton chose her as one seen by many as a famous victim of injustice.
16.
Caroline Norton is said to have had a five-year affair with a prominent Conservative politician Sidney Herbert in the early 1840s, but Herbert married another woman in 1846.
17.
Caroline Norton served as the inspiration for Diana Warwick, the intelligent, fiery-tempered heroine of Meredith's novel Diana of the Crossways, published in 1885.
18.
Caroline Norton married an old friend, the Scottish historical writer and politician Sir W Stirling Maxwell in March 1877.
19.
In 1854, her remaining son, Thomas Brinsley Caroline Norton, married a young Italian, Maria Chiara Elisa Federigo, whom he met in Naples.
20.
Caroline Norton assembled a large collection of coins and grew orchids.