Rosina Southwell, third child of William and Elizabeth Southwell, was born on 13 May 1827 and baptised on 8 June in the same year at St Pancras church. She appears in the 1841 census in her father's household at St James Place.

Her father names her by her married name in his will, proved in 1880, and her death certificate in 1899 records the occupation of her deceased husband, Thomas Norton, as an Australian sheep farmer. According to an entry in Jane Cook’s diary¹, she went to the colonies and married. Her husband went missing after embarking on a journey from which he failed to return, no trace of him ever subsequently being found. There is a record of Rosina Esther Southwell marrying a Tobias Norton on 6 August 1875 in Queensland, Australia, and it seems that Tobias was Thomas under another name. She died on 25 September 1899 of paralysis (said to be long standing) and heart failure at the home of her sister Selina Oakes Devereux, 69 Denmark Villas, Brighton.

¹The diary of Jane Cook, née Robins, a sister-in-law of both Elizabeth and Louisa Southwell, daughters of William Southwell junior and wives of Edward Cookworthy Robins (architect) and Alfred Robins respectively. Particular thanks to David Cripps of Tasmania for his tenacious work in locating and obtaining a research copy of this document in a private archive.

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