## Facts

- Two minor children, Eliza Ianthe Shelley and Charles Bysshe Shelley, were born to Percy Bysshe Shelley and Harriet Westbrook Shelley after their 1811 marriage.
- Percy Shelley separated from Harriet and openly cohabited with another woman; Harriet and the children lived with Harriet’s father, John Westbrook.
- Harriet later died by suicide, and Percy Shelley demanded the children be delivered to him so he could educate them as he chose.
- The children, by their maternal grandfather as next friend, petitioned in Chancery seeking the court’s protection against transfer of custody to their father.
- The petition alleged Percy Shelley avowed atheism and had published writings described as blasphemous and hostile to Christianity, offered as evidence of unfitness to direct the children’s upbringing.
- John Westbrook funded a trust for the children (including transferred stock held by trustees), and sought court-supervised arrangements for custody and education.
- The Lord Chancellor referred the matter to the Master in Chancery, who received competing proposed custody and education plans and reported recommendations; the court then entered orders implementing those recommendations.

## Issues

1. Whether the Court of Chancery, exercising parens patriae jurisdiction, could control a father’s natural authority and deny him custody based on his professed and acted-upon irreligious and immoral principles.
2. Whether a father’s publicly expressed atheism and alleged blasphemous publications, combined with marital misconduct, could justify withholding custody and directing the children’s religious and moral education through court-approved caretakers.

## Decision

- The Court of Chancery refused to place the children in Percy Shelley’s custody.
- The court controlled the father’s authority on the ground that he professed and acted upon irreligious and immoral principles.
- The children were placed and maintained under caretakers and educational arrangements selected or approved by the court, consistent with the Master’s recommendations.
- The court’s orders effectively subordinated the father’s claimed right to educate the children “as he thought proper” to judicial supervision aimed at protecting the children’s welfare.

## Legal Principles

- In custody and education disputes concerning minors, Chancery may act as parens patriae and override a father’s prima facie authority when the father’s principles and conduct are found to endanger the children’s moral and religious upbringing.
- A parent’s expressed religious views and publications may be treated as legally relevant evidence of fitness where they are framed as irreligious or blasphemous and connected to concerns about the child’s education.
- Marital misconduct and domestic behavior (including desertion and illicit cohabitation) may be weighed with belief-based allegations in determining whether paternal custody should be withheld or controlled.
- Court-supervised custody may be structured through approved guardians, tutors, and trustees, with attention to schooling and religious instruction as components of the child’s welfare.

## Conclusion

Chancery exercised its protective jurisdiction over minors to deny a father direct custody and control of education where his atheism, alleged blasphemous publications, and domestic conduct were treated as threats to the children’s moral and religious upbringing, placing the children instead with court-approved caretakers under judicial supervision.


Shelley v. Westbrooke, 37 Eng. Rep. 850 (Ch. 1817)