Blue plaque to Caroline Norton, an unknown heroine of women’s rights

If today a divorced woman has the right to custody of her children and to dispose of her money, the credit is also due to Caroline Norton, a woman born in London in 1808 and today remembered with a blue plaque of theEnglish Heritage.

What are now undisputed rights weren’t in the 19th century, when Caroline lived. Married to George Norton in 1827, she had three children. But, after years of domestic violence, the couple separated. Her husband sued Prime Minister Lord Melbourne, accusing him of having an affair with Caroline, but despite the court’s innocence verdict, he managed to kick his wife out of the house and preventing her contact with children, all three under the age of seven, as well as continuing to benefit from her earnings as a writer.

Caroline, however, as her biographer Antonia Fraser, author of the book, explained The Case of the Married Woman, “Instead of complaining or giving up, which I think almost anyone could have done, she became an activist, wrote pamphlets, lobbied politicians. Instead of suffering in silence, as was expected of a woman of that era, has waged a courageous fight to change the law and played an important role in 19th-century legislation to bring justice to all women. ‘

In addition to promoting a bill to grant child custody to women, Caroline lobbied for new laws to protect women’s property and income.

“All of this resulted from a terrible personal tragedy,” Fraser added. “I admire her so much because did not accept defeat».

The blue plaque was affixed to 3 Chesterfield Street, where Caroline lived alone, struggling and writing. «He achieved historic victories for divorced women by changing the legal system and making them begin to exist in the eyes of the law, in order to protect children, property, earnings and bequests, ”said Anna Eavis, director of English Heritage. “Women owe her a lot.”