The Codrington Divorce of 1864
Can we find queer women in Victorian newspapers? Yes, yes we can.
Content Warning: attempted sexual assault.
Today’s archival deep dive was a worldwide scandal that faded into obscurity. It is the epitome of salacious news coverage the likes of which the Daily Mail can only aspire to. We have infidelity, perceived predatory lesbians and a guest appearance from the poet Robert Browning.
Welcome to the Codrington divorce of 1864.
Admiral Sir John Henry Codrington’s divorce from his wife Helen has plagued me for over a year and a half. I thought incorporating it in a master’s thesis would be enough to loosen its hold on me. It turns out 2000 words mapping the dynamics of this divorce onto the relationship between Carmilla and Laura in the queer classic, Carmilla, was not enough.1
In 1864, Admiral Codrington petitioned the court for a divorce from his wife, who he accused of “having committed adultery with [Colonel] David Anderson and divers [sic] other persons” (Times, 30 July 1864). Helen Codrington counter-claimed, stating she never had an affair, and if she did, it was due to her husband’s neglect. She also said her husband had been cruel, and during their marriage, he had attempted to assault her live-in companion, Emily Faithfull.
The court case became a spectacle with unreliable witnesses, claims of women’s transgressive sexuality, and military men. While proving Helen Codrington’s infidelity was easy, no one seemed to know what to do with her close relationship with the younger Emily Faithfull.
Why?
The women were queer as fuck.
However, their relationship was hidden by Helen Codrington’s “heterosexual sins,” as Martha Vicinus calls them (71). And there were many “heterosexual sins”.
Who were the people involved? Two military men, a wife, and a feminist. It sounds like the set-up of a bad joke.
The Main Players
A note on my reconstruction of these biographies and the court case: most of what I have cobbled together comes from newspapers from 1864, which means there are gaps and biases, most of which I have aimed to address. I have attached links where I have paraphrased or used direct quotes. The first time I reference a specific newspaper, I will enclose the date, but from then on, I will refer to just the paper's name for my sanity.
This divorce case centred around:
Admiral Codrington (who went by many titles during his naval career but for the sake of me not losing my mind will henceforth be called the Admiral),
His wife Helen Codrington,
Emily Faithfull, the live-in companion of Helen Codrington, and
Colonel David Anderson, Helen Codrington’s co-respondent in the divorce proceedings and affair partner.
Admiral Sir Henry John Codrington (1808–1877) came from naval stock. His father was Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, famous for his leadership in the Battle of Trafalgar during the Napoleonic Wars. Edward Codrington found himself a wealthy man due to the death of an uncle who had a plantation in Antigua (yes, that fortune came off the backs of enslaved people because enslavement helped build the British Empire).2 This would set up his sons for life and make them incredibly wealthy bachelors.
Nepo-baby Henry Codrington, the youngest Codrington son, climbed the ranks of the navy, travelling around Europe and Asia for queen and country. He became renowned for his “theoretical tactics” and for severely pissing off his crew through his strict discipline. His 6-foot-5 stature probably helped to intimidate his subordinates. His potentially dictatorial nature will come up later. We have a record of his military career, the dates he spent in England on half-pay, and every bloody ship he ever stepped foot on.
We know little about his wife, Helen Codrington nee Webb Smith (1828-1876), and what we know has been used to paint her in an unflattering light. Most sources focus on her brave and heroic husband only mentioning her as a footnote in his otherwise glorious life. She isn’t mentioned by name in his first Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry in 1887 and the divorce isn’t mentioned in the most recent update in 2004.
We know that she was brought up in Italy, a fact the newspapers loved to mention. She was the “only daughter of a gentleman of great respectability who had long resided in that city [Florence]”, Christopher Webb Smith, an ornithologist and part of the East India Company — yet another father in this story who made his wealth from colonial exploitation (Belfast News-Letter, 1 August 1864, 3).
Helen Webb-Smith was 21 when she met Henry Codrington among the small coterie of English nationals residing in Florence. The two were quickly married at the British Embassy on the 9th of April of 1849 (Times). Codrington was there as the Commanding Officer of Thetis, a naval frigate parading up and down the Italian coast, protecting British interests—commerce and trade—and British subjects.
The first years of the Codringtons’ marriage appear to be agreeable enough. They had two daughters, Anne and Ellen (born in 1851 and 1852 respectively). The Admiral appears to have bounced between England and the Mediterranean during most of their marriage.
On their seventh wedding anniversary, Helen wrote:
“There are few people that can say on the seventh anniversary of their marriage that they have never experienced anything but kindness and love from him whom they promised to love and obey on that ever memorable moment of their lives as I can, my own Harry” (Times).
Eventually, the (not-yet) Admiral was sent off to fight in the Crimean War, which resulted in a prolonged absence in 1856. This is where both parties agree the problems started. Particularly with the introduction of Miss Emily Faithfull.
Emily Faithfull (27 May 1835- 31 May 1895) moved into the Codrington home in April 1856, as a companion of choice for the then twenty-six-year-old Helen Codrington. Faithfull was the youngest daughter of the Rector of Headley, Ferdinand Faithfull (don’t you love the fricative alliteration) and his wife Elizabeth Mary Harrison. They met at Walmer, Kent when Faithfull was 19, two years before Faithfull moved in. The two women became very close very quickly (Belfast News-Letter, 26 November 1864, 4).
The problem wasn’t so much that Emily Faithfull moved into the house, it was that she didn’t leave, and Helen refused to part from her.
Helen Codrington refused to share a bed with Admiral Codrington on his return home from naval duties in August 1856. According to the Times “from time to time Mrs Codrington had proposed that she should sleep with Miss Faithfull, stating that she [Faithfull] was subject to asthma”. The Examiner article claims that “no connubial intercourse had taken place between them since 1856” (26 November 1864, 761).3 Faithfull remained in the house until at least the spring of 1857. To help evict her, Admiral Codrington contacted his in-laws.
Admiral Codrington claimed that he gave his brother an explanation of why he expelled Faithfull from his house (Times). A big deal was made about the letter's contents, but it was never opened or used in court—only talked about.
Even then, the letter may have said little. Alternatively, the letter could have provided insight into the relationship between Faithfull and Mrs Codrington in all its queer glory.
The Codringtons tried to keep the façade of bourgeois marriage when they moved to Malta in late 1857, as the Admiral had been promoted to Rear-Admiral and Admiral Superintendant of Malta’s Dockyard.
See how confusing these ranks are?
However, Malta was not the balm to soothe an unhappy marriage. It was here that Helen Codrington developed relationships with Colonel David Anderson and Lieutenant Herbert Alexander St John Mildmay (Times). Colonel Anderson becomes more of a main character as the court case is filed as Codrington v Codrington & Anderson. Mildmay mainly provides a pattern of adulterous behaviour.
Colonel Anderson (12 August 1821 – 7 October 1909) commanded the 22nd Chesire Regiment and was stationed in Malta for five years coinciding with the Codringtons’ stay. Martha Vicinus writes that for Anderson “the daytime homosociality of the military was broken by evenings of heterosexual pleasure, where he flirted with married women,” most famously Helen Codrington (77).
The social scene for officers and their wives in Malta allowed the convivial Helen to thrive and enjoy herself. According to the Belfast News-Letter “Mrs Codrington often stayed late at balls and the opera, while her husband went to bed. However, he always left a gondola for her to get home in”. Helen used this private gondola to conduct her own private business, which will come up later.
Helen Codrington was often accompanied by either Anderson or Mildmay at night. The Examiner reported that “in the course of that intimacy she forfeited her virtue to one or both of them”. Of course, a woman’s only attribute is her ability to procreate with her husband.
Although, it was when the Codringtons returned to London that shit hit the fan.
Return to London
The Admiral’s stint in Malta concluded, and the Codrington family took up residence in Surrey. It is probably during this time that he began to take an interest in his wife's activities. The Admiral couldn’t help but notice the extended trips his wife was taking to London.
By pure coincidence, Colonel Anderson followed them back to England shortly after. Once back in the UK, Colonel Anderson was a busy man, conducting an affair with his superior’s wife and travelling to Scotland to propose to his cousin, Charlotte Anderson.
While in Scotland he informed Helen Codrington of his impending nuptials. Based on the letters she sent him on the 27th of October 1863, the revelation did not go down well. Mrs Codrington wrote:
“Surely before you entered into such an engagement you were bound, in all honor, to write and tell me of the changed state of your feelings…I cannot believe the feelings of the last two years can be obliterated in so short a time. Let me beg of you solemnly, by all you hold sacred, by the true-hearted affection I have for you, by the memory of the past, think well before you bind yourself forever” (Times).
Helen Codrington begged for “a farewell interview at Taviton Street, her friend’s house” (Times, 30 July 1864, 10). That friend was Emily Faithfull.
Emily Faithfull during this time was thriving. She founded the Victoria Press in 1860 which employed women to write news articles and work the printing press, a traditionally masculine field of work. She edited the monthly publication of the Victoria Magazine, which argued for women’s right to work and their right to work in a safe environment.4 She led by example where her employees were able to “"enjoy an hour break for a midday meal," have "late afternoon tea" and "ready-made dinners" and would be "safely lodged and cared for" (Fredeman, qtd in Frawley 91).
Damn, I want to work for Emily Faithfull.
She was part of the Langham Place Circle, a group of women whose lives revolved around the publishing industry and women’s social betterment. Many were also rumoured to be queer.
Most importantly, Faithfull had been endorsed by Queen Victoria herself as the “Printer and Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty” (ODNB).
During all of this, she was still in contact with Helen Codrington.
We know that Emily Faithfull and Helen Codrington met on the 2nd of November 1863, according to one of Mrs Codrington’s diary entries (Times). Helen Codrington then left for 24 Pall-Mall Street, where Colonel Anderson lived. The couple then went to the Grosvenor Hotel. At midnight, Helen walked home alone. This was the day after Colonel Anderson was caught on the steps of Helen Codrington’s house by the Admiral returning from church.
Armed with this evidence, Admiral Codrington petitioned for divorce and moved out of their house in Surrey with their daughters.
Eight months later, the divorce trial began.
Where in History are we?
One thing about me is I love context. In this case, context is paramount. Three major changes within Victorian society influenced how this court case was and is remembered: the Obscene Publications Act of 1857, the changes to journalism, and the double standard embedded in the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857.
This act declared that “any Obscene Books, Papers, Writings, Prints, Pictures, Drawings, or other Representations are kept in any House, Shop, Room, or other Place” could be “seized” with the “use of Force” by the police with the permission of a magistrate.
Nobody in parliament bothered to define obscenity, which left it up to the interpretation of magistrates, some more conservative than others. The creator of the law, Lord Campbell, hoped to crack down on “works written for the single purpose of corrupting the morals of youth,” mainly those of the middle and lower classes (613). It targeted accessible literature, as M. J. D. Roberts points out, “Lord Campbell and his jurymen had agreed that bawdy penny newspapers “had a far greater tendency to demoralize the public than elaborate pornography sold at one pound”” (612-13).
You’ll notice that the expensive stuff was left alone because rich men bought it. They were too upstanding to be corrupted.
This had unforeseen ramifications like stopping translations of foreign texts (particularly French literature which had a reputation for being much more risqué than English novels), stifling creativity, and ensuring the legacy of the Victorians would appear to be one of moral virtue. The latter is a belief I have devoted a fair chunk of my life to debunking.
Another unexpected consequence emerged: where would people get their scandalous stories from? With few salacious novels in circulation, people turned elsewhere to find entertainment. Where better than the newly set up Divorce Court? Especially when the courts were open to the public and journalists could flock there in search of their next scoop.
Factor: The changing nature of journalism
The 1850s introduced the mass market of newspapers for a population that was becoming more literate. This led to a new wave of journalism shifting from the coverage of politics to the coverage of politics, crime and social matters.
At this time, we see the rise of what would later be called tabloid journalism. Sensational stories captured the imaginations of the nation and more importantly, sold papers. The dissolution of one’s marriage based on adultery, cruelty or desertion was more than enough to capture readers’ attention. Especially when it involved the people who were supposed to be their social betters. Their amoral actions were now recorded for posterity.
A couple’s worst moments were picked over in the courtroom while journalists sat there like vultures waiting for the carrion they could then regurgitate to the hungry public. Parliament saw this coverage as beneficial in deterring future divorces by exposing their sordid nature. Rather, as Gail Savage points out, the state was “deploying public humiliation as a weapon against sexual transgression” in an attempt to stamp it out (526).
The London Review used the Codrington divorce as a kind of moral lesson for its readers writing: “If people who are tempted to bring their domestic griefs before the world in search of a redress which at best must be imperfect, tardy, and dearly-bought, would only weigh a little more deliberately the incidental wounds they are sure to inflict…” (26 November 1864, 581)
The press also couldn’t be penalised by the Obscene Publications Act of 1857. They reported the truth.
How could the truth be obscene?
This whole debacle could not have happened without the double standard enshrined within the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857.
On a few levels, this piece of legislation was a win. There was finally a secular court that would adjudicate the dissolution of a marriage, removing it from the church’s purview. Women, in theory, could be free of abusive husbands and have it legitimated under a court’s jurisdiction.
However, a woman could lose everything in the process: the custody of her children, any property she had, or any money she made while married. The Codrington Divorce occurred before the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870, which allowed women to keep any money they made and let them inherit property without it going to their husbands.
There was also a horrific double standard enshrined in the Matrimonial Causes Act regarding infidelity. Here’s what Martha Vicinus has to say on the matter:
[The] Matrimonial Causes Act (1857) enshrined the sexual double standard: men could obtain divorce for simple adultery, whereas women had to prove adultery combined with bigamy, incest, desertion or cruelty. A husband also had property interest in his wife, and her value decreased if she committed adultery; Section 33 of the Act enabled a husband to sue a correspondent for damages (74).
While a husband had to prove infidelity, his wife would have to prove infidelity alongside desertion or cruelty. Mere infidelity was not enough for a woman to be considered wronged.
With all of this in mind, the Codrington divorce was just the right story to capture the zeitgeist and fascinate an Australian archivist 160 years later.
The Court Case: The Admiral’s Evidence
When Admiral Codrington applied to the court for a dissolution of his marriage, Helen Codrington filed a counterclaim. The Admiral accused Helen of infidelity (Times). Meanwhile, Helen Codrington and Colonel Anderson, her co-respondent “denied the charge” (Times). Helen also pleaded that the Admiral “had been guilty of wilful neglect and misconduct, conducing to her adultery, if it had been committed” (Times).
Helen Codrington’s plea is essentially, I didn’t have an affair, but if I did my husband either:
a) pushed me towards it, or
b) failed in his husbandly duties by neglecting me, and either way,
Helen Codrington’s diary, found in a smashed desk, corroborated her visits with Colonel Anderson, as described by her disgruntled husband. Helen Codrington was aware of her husband’s disapproval of their friendship when she recorded “Scene with the Admiral about Colonel Anderson calling. Said he should write and prohibit his calling any more” in July (Times). She still continued to record her visits to the man. However, it does throw into question her husband’s claims that he never knew of the affairs until November 1863.
Witnesses attested to Helen Codrington’s infidelity. This added an element of the good ol’ British class system with the London Review claiming that Helen Codrington’s crimes were “of the coarsest and most shameless character, and would be supported mainly by witnesses of the very lowest sort”. The low sort they’re talking about were working-class people in gainful employment “a boatman, a sentry, a policeman and a servant discarded for misconduct” and a housekeeper (London Review). Who better to testify than those who ensured their employer’s lives were smooth and easy, who knew their employers more than anyone wanted to admit?
A policeman in Malta testified to seeing Helen Codrington and Colonel Anderson together in an outer yard at midnight in May 1863 (Belfast News-Letter).
One of the men in their service said he “heard a rustling of dresses and whispering and kissing…[he] also heard exclamations and drawing of breath” (Belfast News-Letter). He also claimed to have picked up a piece of Helen Codrington’s ripped dress. This description of a hushed encounter between Helen Codrington and Lieutenant Mildmay was punctuated by the Admiral’s barrister showing a model of the Codrington’s Malta house, which included the stairwell where their servant eavesdropped (Belfast News-Letter).
The Codrington’s boatmen testified about taking Helen Codrington home, accompanied by either Mildmay and Anderson. They apparently sat on the same bench based on the distribution of weight which upset how the gondola sailed. He said it wobbled more than the weather warranted (Times).
The barrister for Admiral Codrington had a small model of this gondola made to show the jury. Because why the fuck not?
I want to know if he got those models at wholesale price.
Then there was Sarah Nicolls, a long-term domestic servant for the Codringtons in England and Malta. She spoke of passing letters between Helen Codrington and Mildmay’s bedroom when they holidayed at the same hotel. The woman ran back and forth between the rooms five times before refusing to deliver any more letters (Times). She also mentioned that Mildmay had been in Helen Codrington’s bedroom more than a few times (Times).
The final witness (and one of the middling class) was Mrs Watson, a friend of the Codringtons who was in Malta at the same time. She testified to Helen Codrington’s relationship with Anderson which was probably some of the most damning evidence. She also claimed Helen confessed to her adultery to her.
The evidence came from the mouth of a reverend’s wife, a woman of morals reaching out to save a fallen woman. The Times wrote that she “endeavoured to rescue this unfortunate lady from the course she was pursuing, and to bring her back to a sense of her duty”. She appears to have failed in this endeavour.
Mrs Watson wasn’t as compelling as she could have been. Partly because she leant her cabman, Crocker, to spy on Helen Codrington, catching her with Colonel Anderson at Grosvenor Hotel. When this was put side-by-side with the diary entry it didn’t look good for Helen. However, everyone from the judge to the press saw the hiring of private detectives/cabmen-moonlighting-as-detectives as a slimy endeavour.
Helen Codrington’s lawyer would spin the help of Mrs Watson through exposing “rumours as to Mrs Watson’s intimacy with the Admiral” (Examiner). Mrs Watson didn’t hold up well on cross-examination, her testimony became confusing and full of “self-contradiction” (London Review).
Much of the criticism of Watson comes from the fact she never broke off her friendship with Helen Codrington. Rather she “pressed for continuance of that intimacy when Mrs Codrington had seemed disposed to withdraw from it” (London Review). She also held a party where both Helen Codrington and Colonel Anderson were in attendance after the supposed confession of adultery. Mrs Watson and Helen Codrington were depicted in the Examiner as being “on terms of most intimate friendship”.
It’s probably worth throwing out Sharon Marcus’ explanation of friendships in her seminal book Between Women:
“For Victorians, a friend was first and foremost an emotional intimate who was not a relative or sexual partner, but the term could also be a euphemism for a lover. Only through discreet but marked rhetoric did Victorians qualify that some “friends” were not friends, but special friends, life friends and particular companions who in private communications could as easily be called husband or wife” (26).
Mrs Watson left court after cross-examination with a reputation of double-crossing a friend by spying on her, being overly friendly with both Admiral and Helen Codrington, while being a slight fabulist.
When it came to the court of public opinion, Helen Codrington’s character was damning evidence. The Examiner claimed Codrington was “frivolous and gay in her conduct” and known for “stay[ing] out late at night” without her husband. She was known for her “irregular hours and questionable behaviour,” with “witnesses describe[ing] late-night card parties, private trysts and wild talk” (Vicinus 84). She became a sort of social monster who ensnared other men and women in her web regardless of social propriety. Whether that be her companion Emily Faithfull, two upstanding military men, and her supposed friend and clergyman’s wife, Mrs Watson. All of whom had mud on them by sheer association with her.
The English had also long seen Italy as a place of sexual peril and directly in opposition to the rigid morals of the English upper classes. Sexual abnormality in any sense was seen to be an import either from Europe or Asia. Helen had contaminated the English shores with her Italian upbringing. And if people weren’t careful it would infect them too.
With all of the Admiral’s evidence on the table, it was time for Helen’s counterclaims to take centre stage.
The Court Case: Helen Codrington’s Counterclaims
It was pretty conclusive that Helen Codrington had engaged in some form of sexual transgression, even if some of the evidence was ridiculous and involved models of gondolas. Her legal team pivoted to focus on how badly she’d been wronged by her husband. If she could prove her husband was at fault the judge could force the two unhappy people to stay married. This meant that Helen would have access to her daughters and would not be turned out onto the street.
Mrs Codrington claimed neglect as her husband did not fulfil his husbandly duties by accompanying her to social events, thus isolating her from her social circles. He preferred the company of Mrs Watson, who was not his wife. Finally, he was no longer interested in her sexually. She claimed she went into the Admiral’s bedroom where “he had removed her to her own room and had hurt her” with his manhandling (Times, 18 November 1864, 9). This could be construed as an act of cruelty with his use of physical force. He did concede that this incident happened but only after Helen had been out dancing (read: drinking and making merry), but he hadn’t meant to hurt her.
For evidence of her husband’s cruelty, she turned to a few more examples. One occurred on the 26th of June 1863. She wrote in her diary “Admiral Codrington put a veto on my going out. Spoke to my father thereupon” (Times). The Admiral said this was due to her jaunts to London which ended at late hours. However, it could also be a controlling husband attempting to isolate his wife and bringing his father-in-law on board to help control her.
The Admiral also confiscated her house keys, which prevented her from leaving the house and hampered her completion of domestic duties (Vicinus, 78).
Her final claim of cruelty involved Emily Faithfull. This part of the story is particularly murky. Three people are involved in this situation, and at least one of them is lying. I will preface this by saying I don’t have a definitive answer as to the truth, and while I will pose some theories, they are just that: theories.
Helen Codrington claimed that before her husband evicted Faithfull, he’d attempted to sexually assault her. She claimed her husband climbed into bed with the two women, in only his nightshirt and turned his attentions on the interloper in their marriage, trying to force a “connexion” as the Times put it. Faithfull, however, fought him off.
When asked the Admiral said he was merely there to check on the fire – a maid’s job.
By arguing that her husband attempted to assault Faithfull, Helen Codrington could open up the argument that her husband was a cruel man and that he too was an adulterer (and rapist). Faithfull also signed an affidavit saying this incident happened.
News coverage in the Times made it clear that they thought this accusation was the mudslinging of a woman who was facing the prospect of losing everything. They reported that the Admiral “almost shrank from stating [the accusation], so foul and false was it,” positioning him as the victim of a false accusation.
How things haven’t changed.
We also have the Victorian use of euphemisms and obfuscations as to what the actual crime was because it was deemed to be too scandalous, too horrific to be named. But when we don’t name things, we only enforce the grip they have over us.
Faithfull’s name was printed in the papers alongside the allegation, and she was subpoenaed to testify as a witness in Helen Codrington’s case.
Emily Faithfull fled.
I don’t blame her. At the time, divorce was considered to be a sordid affair, and she’d spent years building her reputation as a hard-working publisher, being a voice for women (still slightly conservative but more progressive than most), and this would ruin her reputation. Faithfull and her ilk were also of the belief “that easier divorces would lead to lower moral standards” (Vicinus 83). Now she was caught in the middle of one and it didn’t matter who you believed, everyone in this case had the stamp of low moral standards.
There were also rumours perpetuated by Faithfull’s social group, particularly from lawyer Joseph Parkes, the father of a once good friend Bessie Rayner Parkes. He said Faithfull was “still in London in Male attire” (qtd in Vicinus 81). Not only was the woman crossing sexual barriers by sleeping in the bed of a married woman, but she was also crossing gendered ones.
Faithfull had been called “boyish” and “a mannish feminist”. The closest thing most people had to labelling Faithfull as queer was her perceived masculinity. As Anna Clark points out much of her scandal-making nature came from “half-understood oblique gestures, veiled in silence” (140). People knew the women’s relationship was odd but they didn’t necessarily have the term “lesbian” or “sapphic” to describe it. Sharing a bed could be explained away but refusing to give up the bed for Helen Codrington’s husband was determined as strange behaviour for a woman, “mannish” behaviour if anything.
Victorian society couldn’t cope with Faithfull’s sexual and gendered transgressions. Publications pulled out of their contracts with the Victoria Press, afraid that the scandal would taint their reputations.
Faithfull’s absence stalled the proceedings for a couple of months. Although, she eventually came back to England to try and stop her reputation from any further damage.
Faithfull testified in November 1864. She denied the allegations against Admiral Codrington and attempted to mitigate any personal damage. She said she signed the affidavit without reading it, under the influence of her friend who fed her information. She claimed that all she saw was the Admiral leaving the women’s shared bedroom. She also reiterated that the Admiral did occasionally come into the room to check the fire (Belfast News-Letter).
I believe that something did happen. It could have been that the Admiral attempted to assault Faithfull in some form of corrective rape to cure her of her sapphism. Another possibility is that Helen Codrington had been assaulted by her husband but knew that nobody would take her suffering seriously. Marital rape was legal until 1991.
Faithfull was also in a difficult position. Maria Frawley points out that there were two outcomes for Faithfull “one which implicated her either as the attempted rape victim of Admiral Codrington or as the lesbian partner of his wife, Helen” (97). Of course, this was a much more victim-blamey time where either outcome would be humiliating and horrific for those involved and a joke to everyone else. By recanting, she may be a liar, but she wasn’t admitting to being a victim or a lesbian (in theory). We also don’t know if there were other factors like bribes or threats that influenced her decision.
While I can speculate, no one will ever know the truth.
The trial finally came to an end, and the jury (because yes, if this whole thing wasn’t bad enough, there was a jury) found Helen Codrington did commit adultery with both Lieutenant Mildmay and Colonel Anderson. They also found that Admiral Codrington was not guilty of “wilful neglect or misconduct conducing her to adultery” (Examiner).
On appeal, the Admiral had to pay for his now ex-wife’s legal fees as the judge said he “had suffered, if not enforced, his wife to absent herself from his bed at night, and lead a separate life by day” (qtd in Vicinus 83).
Read as: despite his protestations the Admiral knew his wife was having affairs and his lack of attention had caused them.
My Analysis
As we get into the analysis of the case I think Martha Vicinus makes an interesting point that we need to remember: “A lesbian presence could be covered by long-standing heterosexual sins, such as adultery” (71).
The court case was based on Helen Codrington’s affairs with two men. While her relationship with Faithfull was deemed unusual, it was not enough to get a divorce over. Women’s homosexuality wasn’t illegal which has allowed stories like Helen Codrington’s to go undiscovered or unexamined.
In the case of Faithfull and Codrington’s relationship, there is an indication that people knew exactly what was happening, they just didn’t want or know how to say it out loud (an ongoing theme here). The London Review refers to them as “intimate friends”. The concept of romantic friendships between women had long been a subject of mockery in cartoons like this one here, and in literature like in William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, with Amelia Sedley's intense feelings towards Miss Schwartz when they first meet, as pointed out by Carolyn Oulton.
Women’s intense relationships with each other were tentatively accepted, as long as they didn’t replace a heteronormative framework. When Helen Codrington preferred to sleep in her friend’s bed over her husband’s bed, she symbolically claimed her friend to be her new husband. As a result of the court case, Faithfull and Codrington’s relationship moved from a secret (perhaps an open one) to a published truth.
If you want to read more about an iteration of romantic friendship here’s a link to my last piece on Adelaide Underhill and Lucy Maynard Salmon. It’s a much nicer story.
When something is out in public, people will discuss it. As is the case with poet and collector of lesbian gossip, Robert Browning (who seems to be linked to a lot of queer women, and this will not be the last time he is mentioned over here at Archival Mess). He believed the unsealed letter that the Admiral wrote (not the assault allegation) was so frightening to Faithfull because it would ruin her chances with a female poet and Langham Place Group member, Adelaide Procter. He wrote to Isa Blagden (who appears to have a “close” relationship with his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning):
…one of the counsel in the case told an acquaintance of mine that the "sealed letter" contained a charge I shall be excused from even hinting to you— fear of the explosion of which, caused the shift of Miss E. from one side to the other. As is invariably the case, people's mouths are opened, and tell you what "they knew long ago" though it seems that did not matter a bit so long as nobody else knew. (Browning to Blagden, 19 Jan 1865).
This is another statement couched in euphemisms. Translating it from Victorian speak, Browning is claiming that Faithfull’s queerness, which was well known in some circles, would be undeniably proven by the Admiral’s letter. If the letter were to be read out loud it would go on a public record as a truth meaning everyone, not just a select few would know.
And if everyone knew, everyone would feel free to talk about it.
Any woman who was seen to be in proximity to Faithfull would be considered queer too, thus ruining their reputations. This possibility made Faithfull recant her testimony to ensure that the letter was never read and she could still hide her queerness behind plausible deniability.
For a man who has been linked to so many sapphic women, Browning sure is judgemental.
While Faithfull’s social circle was rather caustic towards her, she was treated much better than Helen Codrington in the press. Faithfull was deemed to be the innocent party wronged by her villainous friend who refused to abide by social convention —a greater sin than adultery.
I draw your attention to the London Review’s description of Helen Codrington:
Mrs Codrington, who had been brought up in Italy, was of a lively and social disposition, fond of gaiety and admiration, too much in the habit of disregarding appearances and conventionalities, and unusually given to extravagance and rodomontade in her conversation, and especially in her autobiographical conversation, was also well known.
They essentially call her an unconventional, self-aggrandizing, extravagant woman more interested in how she is perceived than being a good wife. Also, she’s Italian…kind of, so her behaviour is reflective of Italy, not the good upstanding people of England.5
The Spectator called her a “social peril” as if she aimed to infect the rest of the world with her queer and adulterous ways like some kind of STI (26 November 1864, 12).
Meanwhile, the same London Review article says of Faithfull:
Miss Faithfull’s case is the hardest and most cruel of all – and from a very different cause. Whatever damage the characters of the Admiral and Mrs Watson may have sustained has been the result of their own deed…But Miss Faithfull – whose has earned so a high a position for herself in public esteem…is mixed up with this disreputable case through no fault of her own. She was dragged into Court in spite of her reiterated entreaties. She had even left England to avoid the pain of appearing in a conflict between two former friends, and of being forced to give evidence, which must be damaging to one, and might be damaging to both, – and there is no one who will not sympathize with her motives in this avoidance.
Faithfull is seen to be an unwilling participant in the case, friendly to both of the Codringtons and loyal to a fault. The London Review emphasised her “long-continued and meritorious exertions in the cause of unemployed and indigent women,” which positioned her as a moral woman (and more moral than a certain Mrs Watson). This is one of the reasons she got off so lightly. The charitable English woman was a net good for society while the flirtatious Italian-ish woman was a scourge on society.
The other reason for Faithfull’s lenient treatment was her young age when she met Helen Codrington. She was the daughter of a clergyman, creating an image of innocence and piety.
This falls into the category of stereotypes that have hounded queer women since society deemed them an Other: the predatory lesbian (or bisexual in this case). I can’t blame Helen Codrington for this stereotype, I just think it’s interesting to map these dynamics onto history because it keeps repeating and repeating.
Martha Vicinus points out this dichotomy of innocence/experience as “the younger partner in the affair, [Faithfull] was excused, while the heterosexually experienced Helen was blamed” (“Lesbian Perversity and Victorian Marriage” 86).
Helen Codrington also rejected a man for a woman; moving outside of the heteronormative framework that underpinned Victorian society. Meanwhile, Emily Faithfull was nineteen, unmarried and “manipulated” by a friend who should have known better. Faithfull was at a prime husband-hunting age but had been distracted by an older woman looking for her own amusement. Notice the difference in the way Browning talks of Faithfull, a peripheral part of his social circle, compared to the press who didn’t know her.
For all we know the two women may have loved each other passionately and gently but because of Helen Codrington’s relationships with men, their relationship was seen to be just an extension of her social deviance. The idea that two women could be happy together never crossed anyone’s mind. Rather Helen Codrington manipulated Emily Faithfull into recreating a husband and wife dynamic and Faithfull was too young to understand what was really going on.
The Aftermath
What happened to our four major players after this whole affair?
Admiral Codrington remarried, to an English woman this time, Catherine Aitchison Compton, whom he had another daughter with. He was eventually promoted to Admiral of the Fleet in January 1877 before dying in August 1877.
Colonel Anderson did go on to marry his cousin and have five children. He also became the last Governor of Sandhurst’s Royal Military College, promoted to General in 1888, before retiring. He died in 1909.
Helen Codrington is lost to history after this trial. I cannot find a picture of her, a reference towards her, or even her death.
I spent much too long on findagrave.com looking for Helen Codrington then Helen Smith then Helen Webb Smith, only to Google her father and for her grave to come up. There is no record of her death date or where her grave actually is. Someone has gone in and modified the entry, so it says that Emily Faithfull was her spouse. It appears she died 12 years after the divorce trial in 1878.
I go back and forth on how I feel about Helen Codrington. At times she seems like a victim, in a loveless marriage and a woman who lost everything in a divorce. Other times she appears as a villain, dragging everyone’s secrets to light. Then I remember her husband did the same. She was positioned by those at the time to be a villain for her sexual transgressions but to judge a person on what was probably the worst day of her life feels unfair. All I can say is Helen is complicated.
Emily Faithfull, on the other hand, had a prolific career. It took her a couple of years to recover professionally but she continued to work on the Victoria Magazine and managed it until 1867.
In 1868 she published a Changes Upon Changes (or A Reed Shaken in the Wind: A Love Story as published in America) which is regarded as a roman à clef about her time with Helen Codrington. It follows the doomed love of Wilfred for his cousin, Tiny Harewood. Tiny (ie Helen), goes to Rome and flirts with a bunch of handsome men, meets independent women, and marries rich. Wilfred complies with Tiny’s every need and eventually “wrecks his health earning extra money at the Naval Office to impress Tiny’s family” and feels as though his health is his punishment for “loving a married woman” (Vicinus 89). There appears to be a conflation of Faithfull, Admiral Codrington and Colonel Anderson’s stories within the character of Wilfred.
This is one book I’m leaving off my TBR, and I thank Martha Vicinus for taking one for the team by reading it.
Faithfull spent the rest of her life as a journalist, author and lecturer in the United Kingdom and the United States. She died in May 1895 with the Codrington affair being a blip in her legacy.
The Codrington Divorce is one of those cases where it is hard to work out what is true and what is a lie. Although it is one of those small glimpses we get into sapphic Victorian history. Queer women weren’t seen in court in the same way queer men were. They existed in an odd space in history, not accepted but not criminally condemned like their queer male counterparts.
Helen Codrington was officially punished by the court and the press for her “heterosexual sins” but there was clear judgement about her relationship with Faithfull. Emily Faithfull on the other hand suffered professionally and personally for her relationship with Helen Codrington, and also for the alleged sexual assault which in no way would have been her fault. Their queerness is hidden behind acts that could be named.
While this divorce may not be the best representation of the way queer women are remembered, it’s one of the only ones we’ve got. We just need to peel past the layers of innuendo to see it.
George tells you she has a master’s degree—drink! I only tell you because I use it so infrequently.
A plaque celebrating Edmund Codrington in Brighton was taken down in 2020 after the Black Lives Matter protests, due to Codrington’s involvement in the slave trade. Here’s an article about it.
If I had to read the phrase connubial intercourse so do you.
Faithfull and some of her friends were a part of the Society for Promoting Employment for Women, which had the ill-thought-out acronym of SPEW.
There were also claims that she said the Prince Consort Albert met her once and was infatuated with her.