Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton was a famous British society beauty, feminist, social reformer, and author of the early and mid nineteenth century.
Youth and Marriage
Caroline was born in London, England to Thomas Sheridan and Caroline Henrietta Callander. Her father was an actor, soldier, and colonial administrator, and the son of the prominent Irish playwright and Whig statesman Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Her mother was Scottish, the daughter of a landed gentleman, Col. Sir James Callander of Craigforth and Lady Elizabeth MacDonnell, the sister of an Irish peer, Lord Antrim. Mrs. Sheridan authored three short novels described by one her daughter's biographers as "rather stiff with the style of the eighteenth century, but none without a certain charm and wit..."
In 1817, her father died in South Africa, where he was serving as the colonial secretary at the Cape of Good Hope.His family was left virtually penniless. The Duke of York, an old friend of her grandfather's, arranged for Caroline's family to live at Hampton Court Palace in a "grace and favour" apartment, where they remained for several years.
The combined beauty and accomplishments of the Sheridan sisters led to them being collectively referred to as the Three "Graces". The eldest sister, Helen, was a song-writer who married the 4th Baron Dufferin and Claneboye. Through her, Caroline became the aunt of the 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, who later served as the third Governor General of Canad..
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