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Eardley John Norton (19 February 1852 – 13 July 1931) was a Madras barrister, coroner and politician of British origin. He was also one of the earliest members of the Indian National Congress and a champion of civil liberties and rights of the Indian people.
In 1897, a furor was raised over the appointment of a lawyer V. Bhashyam Aiyangar as Advocate-General of the Presidency. Norton suggested that it was better to seek the opinion of the Bombay Bar over it and his suggestion was implemented.
Norton was a close friend of G. Subramania Iyer, who founded The Hindu. He wrote a column in The Hindu called "Olla Podrida" under the pseudonym Sentinel. This column ran from May 1889 to December 1889. Norton started the Indian Aluminium Company for the manufacture of utensils in 1900.
He campaigned in England along with Dadabhai Naoroji and W. C. Bonnerjee for greater political rights for Indians and there they enlisted the support of Charles Bradlaugh, Liberal Member of British Parliament for Northampton. The three said Congressmen, along with William Digby created a UK chapter of the Indian National Congress.Indian National Evolution, Pg 127Indian National Evolution, p. 137
The UK-wing, known as the British Committee of the Indian National Congress, was established in July 1889 under the leadership of Bradlaugh, who was accorded the title "Member for India".Indian National Evolution, p. 128
Norton was also part of the Congress' first deputation to England in 1889.Indian National Evolution, p. 136 He attended the Bombay Congress of 1889 which came to be popularly called 'Bradlaugh Congress' because Bradlaugh attended it. In that Congress, he introduced the Madras scheme for reform of the Indian Legislative Councils and that scheme, due mainly to the efforts put by Bradlaugh and the Indian Congressmen, metamorphosed into the Indian Councils Act 1892. He participated in the tenth session of the Indian National Congress held in Madras in 1894.Besant, p. 187
The scandal of his affair with a married woman, whom he married after her divorce from her husband, wrecked his political career. After resignation from the Congress in 1895, he only attended one further Congress, the Madras Congress held in 1903.
When he was called a 'veiled seditionist' for his association with the Indian National Congress, he responded to the charge in a hard-hitting speech in the Madras Congress of 1887:
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