On the 22 March 1808, Caroline Sheridan (later Caroline Norton) was born into a famous theatrical family. (She revered her grandfather Richard Brinsley Sheridan, but probably never understood how famous in her day had been her great-grandmother Frances Sheridan.) She grew up to be a beauty, but she married a man who was her intellectual inferior and who used violence against her from the outset, even before he became furiously jealous, began divorce proceedings, and barred her from access to her small sons. Famous in her lifetime as a poet and a professional woman of letters, Norton is best remembered today as a political reformer publishing on topics of special interest to women, like child labour, divorce law, married women’s property, and especially custody of children. Her efforts played a significant role in the passing of the Infant Custody Bill, late 1839, the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act, 1857, and the Married Women’s Property Act, 1870.

This information is provided by Dr Isobel Grundy, University of Alberta, and comes from Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present, Cambridge University Press, by subscription. For more information see here.