Julia Sorell was the daughter of William Sorell, registrar of the Supreme Court. On 13 June 1850 she married educationalist Thomas Arnold in St David's Anglican Cathedral, Hobart. Arnold later converted to Roman Catholicism, a move that dismayed Sorell. Arnold took up the chair of literature at the Catholic University in Dublin and later became classics master at Birmingham Oratory School. He also studied and taught at Oxford University and was elected fellow of the Royal University of Ireland in 1882.
The Australian Dictionary of Biography states that: 'Despite his wife's extravagances and passionate temper, he remained devoted to her'. Sorell was a 'cripple for her last eleven years' and died in 1888.
Among her children were suffragette and journalist Ethel Arnold, novelist Mary (Mrs Humphrey) Ward, and Julia Huxley, mother of writer Aldous Huxley and evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley.
Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography, http://adb.anu.edu.au/
Sighted: 27/09/2012
