Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts ( Burdett; 21 April 1814 – 30 December 1906) was a British philanthropist, the daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet and Sophia, formerly Coutts, daughter of banker Thomas Coutts. In 1837 she became one of the wealthiest women in England when she inherited her grandfather's fortune of around £1.8 million () following the death of her stepgrandmother, Harriot Beauclerk, Duchess of St Albans. She joined the surnames of her father and grandfather, by royal licence, to become Burdett-Coutts. Edward VII is reported to have described her as "[a]fter my mother, the most remarkable woman in the kingdom".

Life

thumb|Burdett-Coutts' carte de visite

Burdett-Coutts was widely known as "the richest heiress in England". She was a collector of paintings, including Old Masters. Among the contemporary paintings she purchased was Robert Scott Lauder's Christ Walking on the Sea. The Reverend Richard Harris Barham, in a ballad (part of the Ingoldsby Legends) he wrote under the pen name "Thomas Ingoldsby" for Queen Victoria's coronation, referred to her as "Miss Anja-ly Coutts". She became a subject of public curiosity, receiving numerous offers of marriage.

Burdett-Coutts spent part of each year at Ehrenberg Hall in Torquay with her former governess and later companion Hannah Brown, to whom she was devoted. When Brown died in 1878, Burdett-Coutts wrote to a friend that she was utterly crushed by the loss of "my poor darling, the companion and sunshine of my life for 52 years". She was a friend of both Charles Dickens and Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, and she proposed marriage to the Duke despite him being 45 years her senior.

She endowed the bishoprics of Cape Town and Adelaide (1847), and the founding bishopric of British Columbia (1857). The granite Greyfriars Bobby Fountain in Edinburgh, with a bronze statue of Greyfriars Bobby, was erected by Baroness Burdett-Coutts. She was involved with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). Burdett-Coutts was influential in the formation of the RSPCA's ladies committee in 1869 and was its first president.

In 1864, she financed the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem; the primary goal of the endeavour was to find better drinking water for those living in the city. During this work (1864–1865), the group, led by Charles William Wilson, was able to produce the most accurate and comprehensive map of Jerusalem but was unable to find a new source of water. The Jerusalem Post commented that "Charles Wilson’s work on the Jerusalem Ordnance Survey served as the basis for all future Jerusalem research". Burdett-Coutts subsequently helped fund other explorations in the Holy Land, sometimes in conjunction with the Palestine Exploration Fund. This effort included a subsequent offer to fund another exploration to find water for Jerusalem, to be led by Charles Warren.

Burdett-Coutts founded Columbia Market in 1869, in Bethnal Green in the East End of London, the district where much of her work was carried out. With her project in Columbia Square she became a pioneer in social housing. She was also the president of the British Goat Society.

In 1884, she was a co-founder of the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which became the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in 1889; she also founded the Westminster Technical Institute in 1893.

Selected other roles and projects

  • President, British Beekeepers Association 1878–1906
  • President of the Ladies Committee of the RSPCA (England/Scotland)
  • Church bells for St Paul's Cathedral
  • Cotton gins for Nigeria
  • Only female Patron of Queen's Medical College, Birmingham. <College Calendar for 1858>
  • Construction of the Angela Burdett-Coutts retail and wholesale produce market, which opened in 1869
  • The Baroness Burdett Coutts Drinking Fountain in Victoria Park
  • Drinking fountains for dogs
  • Help for Turkish peasants and the refugees of the 1877 Russo-Turkish War, receiving the Order of the Medjidiyeh
  • Created Holly Village, the first gated community, in 1865, in Highgate, London, which is a Grade II listed site.

Honours

In 1871, in recognition of her philanthropic work, Queen Victoria conferred on her a suo jure peerage as Baroness Burdett-Coutts of Highgate and Brookfield in the County of Middlesex.

On 18 July 1872 she became the first woman to be presented with the Freedom of the City of London at the Guildhall, and in 1874 she became Edinburgh's first woman Freeman and was also presented with the Freedom of that city.

Death

Lady Burdett-Coutts died of acute bronchitis at her home on Stratton Street, Piccadilly. By the time of her death she had given more than £3 million to good causes. Nearly 30,000 people filed past her coffin before she was buried on 5 January 1907 near the West Door in the nave of Westminster Abbey. She left no issue and the barony became extinct on her death.

A portrait of her is included in the mural of heroic women by Walter P. Starmer unveiled in 1921 in the church of St Jude-on-the-Hill in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London.

Legacy

Charles Dickens dedicated his novel Martin Chuzzlewit to her and she had many royal and eminent friends.