Caroline Frances Cornwallis

12 July 1786 - 08 January 1858

CFC was a prolific writer and scholar. Her anonymous, collaborative twenty-volume series Small Books on Great Subjects popularized scientific and technical knowledge, and addressed social concerns. The most common theme in her writing was that of proper Christian practices framed by a logical, philosophical context.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

She is most remembered for her two articles published in The Westminster Review on The Property of Married Women and Capabilities and Disabilities of Women. Both demonstrate her use of research and rhetoric to advocate for women's rights. She was passionate about educational reform for women and for the poor. She published a single novel, the historical Pericles; she also translated from several languages into English poems that remained unpublished until after her death.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Cornwallis, Caroline Frances. Selections from the Letters of Caroline Frances Cornwallis. Power, M. C.Editor , Trübner and Co., 1864.

335-78

Milestones

12 July 1786

CFC was born at Wittersham in Kent.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

October 1856

CFC 's article The Property of Married Women appeared under her initials in The Westminster Review; it was the first of her two influential pieces on the inequities suffered by women.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

C19: The Nineteenth Century Index.

September 1857

The last article by CFC was Naval Education in Fraser's Magazine, presumably a follow-up to her Naval School on Board the Illustrious, which appeared in the same journal in April 1855.

C19: The Nineteenth Century Index.

Cornwallis, Caroline Frances. Selections from the Letters of Caroline Frances Cornwallis. Power, M. C.Editor , Trübner and Co., 1864.

443

8 January 1858

Having been chronically ill for most of her life, CFC died at her home at Lidwells, near Goudhurst in Kent.

The ODNB wrongly gives the name of her house as Sidwells.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Biography

Birth and Family

12 July 1786

CFC was born at Wittersham in Kent.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.