Outrageous Women

From the archive: Lady Antonia Fraser, Catherine Ostler and Hallie Rubenhold.

The stories of two women who refused to be defined by society’s expectations.

Award winning historian Antonia Fraser introduces Caroline Norton, a 19th-century poet and pamphleteer who became a pioneering women’s rights activist at a time when married women and their children were considered their husband’s property. Having fallen victim to a botched court case brought by her husband, the MP George Norton, alleging her adultery with the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, she fought back against multiple injustices as a campaigner. The Infant Custody Act of 1839 was a landmark achievement.