Caroline Norton's husband claimed her book earnings and her inheritance from her mother, and her campaign changed English property law

Caroline Sheridan married George Norton, a barrister and MP, in 1827. She earned more from writing in a month than he earned at the bar in a year. In 1836 she left him. He demanded £10,000 from the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, then sued him for criminal conversation with Caroline; the jury found for Melbourne after a nine-day trial. George took their sons and hid them from her. The youngest, William, died in 1842 after a riding accident. Under the law of the time a wife's property, earnings and copyrights belonged to her husband. George went to court and won the right to her copyrights and earnings. He claimed the money she inherited from her mother and the interest on her late father's pension, and kept her manuscripts. When he refused to pay her debts, she told her creditors to sue him. Her pamphlets fed the Custody of Infants Act 1839 and the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857. The Married Women's Property Act 1870, passed when she was 62, gave her ownership of her literary works and earnings and let married women inherit property in their own right. George died in 1875. She married Sir William Stirling-Maxwell in March 1877 and died three months later, on 15 June 1877.