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Caroline Norton: beauty and wit, poet, pamphleteer and blue stocking. Married to a boorish minor aristocrat at 19, who accused her, for his own political ends, of an affair, 'Criminal Conversation', with Lord Melbourne which ended in the 'Trial of the Century'. Pilloried by society, cut off and bankrupted by her family she went on to be the most important figure in establishing womens' rights in marriage. This is the startling story of how one woman changed marriage and revolutionised women's rights.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century a wife was a chattel of her husband: her children were not her own, and all her money and belongings automatically became his when they married. Before 1857 an Act of Parliament was the only way to get a divorce. Caroline Sheridan was a beautiful, clever and opinionated young woman who was manoeuvred into marrying George Norton when she was nineteen. Nearly ten years older, he was a dull, miserly, violent and controlling barrister but she would never be the traditional mousey Victorian wife. By her early twenties, and despite her husband's protestations, Caroline had become a respected poet and song-writer, clever mimic and outrageous flirt. Her beauty and wit attracted many male admirers, including the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne.
When Caroline refused to promote her husband to Melbourne for a stipend job in government he publically accused her and Queen Victoria's first Prime Minister of a 'criminal conversation' (adultery) with his wife which led to an infamous trial at Westminster Hall in 1836,'the scandal of the century'. Charles Dickens, a newspaper reporter at the trial, would later fictionalize the event as 'Bardell v Pickwick' in in The Pickwick Papers. After a trial lasting twelve hours, the jury's not guilty verdict was immediate and unanimous. Norton was a laughing-stock: angry and humiliated, he threw Caroline out and refused to let her see their three sons, He seized her manuscripts and letters and her clothes and jewels. For the next thirty years Caroline Norton campaigned for women and battled male-dominated Victorian society, helping to write the Infant and Child Custody Act (1839), the Matrimonial Causes (Divorce) Act (1857) and the Married Women's Property Act (1870), which gave women a separate legal identity for the first time.
Diane Atkinson has spent two years researching Caroline Norton's story afresh and sheds new and intriguing light on Caroline's life and her relationship with Melbourne, and the trial verdict.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century a wife was a chattel of her husband: her children were not her own, and all her money and belongings automatically became his when they married. Before 1857 an Act of Parliament was the only way to get a divorce. Caroline Sheridan was a beautiful, clever and opinionated young woman who was manoeuvred into marrying George Norton when she was nineteen. Nearly ten years older, he was a dull, miserly, violent and controlling barrister but she would never be the traditional mousey Victorian wife. By her early twenties, and despite her husband's protestations, Caroline had become a respected poet and song-writer, clever mimic and outrageous flirt. Her beauty and wit attracted many male admirers, including the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne.
When Caroline refused to promote her husband to Melbourne for a stipend job in government he publically accused her and Queen Victoria's first Prime Minister of a 'criminal conversation' (adultery) with his wife which led to an infamous trial at Westminster Hall in 1836,'the scandal of the century'. Charles Dickens, a newspaper reporter at the trial, would later fictionalize the event as 'Bardell v Pickwick' in in The Pickwick Papers. After a trial lasting twelve hours, the jury's not guilty verdict was immediate and unanimous. Norton was a laughing-stock: angry and humiliated, he threw Caroline out and refused to let her see their three sons, He seized her manuscripts and letters and her clothes and jewels. For the next thirty years Caroline Norton campaigned for women and battled male-dominated Victorian society, helping to write the Infant and Child Custody Act (1839), the Matrimonial Causes (Divorce) Act (1857) and the Married Women's Property Act (1870), which gave women a separate legal identity for the first time.
Diane Atkinson has spent two years researching Caroline Norton's story afresh and sheds new and intriguing light on Caroline's life and her relationship with Melbourne, and the trial verdict.
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About the Author:
DIANE ATKINSON was born in the North-East and educated in Cornwall and London, where she completed a PhD on the politics of women's sweated labour. At the Museum of London she worked as a lecturer and curator specializing in women's history. She has an MA from the University of East Anglia in Life-writing. She is the author of Suffragettes in Pictures, Funny Girls: Cartooning for Equality, Love and Dirt: The Marriage of Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick, and Elsie and Mairi Go To War, published in 2009.
Review:
"The liberating life story of the first feminist legislator" Kathy Lette "Diane Atkinson has written the definitive account of one of the most important trials of the nineteenth century - that of Caroline Norton's fight to keep her children. The Criminal Conversation of Mrs Norton is an important and necessary book. It also happens to be beautifully written and extremely entertaining. Diane Atkinson has resurrected a nineteenth century heroine in the twentieth-first century." Amanda Foreman "Caroline Norton took her fight to see her children to the highest court in the land and changed the lot of mothers for ever. Diane Atkinson tells her story with a clarity and wit that makes it a pleasure to read." Joan Bakewell "Expertly researched and finely written... Mrs Norton's journey from abused wife to passionate reformer is as moving as it is fascinating, and Atkinson's richly detailed work does her subject the justice she deserves." BBC History Magazine "Diane Atkinson's captivating fifth book...pacy book that's as bright and fascinating as its heroine." Independent on Sunday
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- PublisherPreface Publishing
- Publication date2012
- ISBN 10 1848093012
- ISBN 13 9781848093010
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages496
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The Criminal Conversation of Mrs Norton
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ISBN 10: 1848093012
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