Background
Angela Burdett-Coutts was born on the 21st of April 1814 in London, England; the youngest daughter of Sir Francis Burdett.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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Angela Burdett-Coutts was born on the 21st of April 1814 in London, England; the youngest daughter of Sir Francis Burdett.
When she was three-and-twenty, she inherited practically the whole of the immense wealth of her grandfather Thomas Coutts (approaching two millions sterling, a fabulous sum in those days), by the will of the duchess of St Albans, who, as the actress Henrietta Mellon, had been his second wife and had been left it on his death in 1821. Miss Burdett then took the name of Coutts in addition to her own. "The faymale heiress, Miss Anjaley Coutts, " as the author of the Ingoldsby Legends called her in his ballad on the queen's coronation in that year (1837), at once became a notable subject of public curiosity and private cupidity; she received numerous offers of marriage, but remained resolutely single, devoting herself and her riches to philanthropic work, which made her famous for well-applied generosity. In May 1871 she was created a peeress, as Baroness Burdett-Coutts of Highgate and Brookfield, Middlesex.
Full of good works, and of social interest and influence, the baroness lived to the great age of ninety-two, dying at her house in Stratton Street, Piccadilly, on the 30th of December 1906, of bronchitis. She was buried in Westminster Abbey.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
The extent of her benefactions during her long and active life can only be briefly indicated; but the baroness must remain a striking figure in the social history of Victorian England, for the thoughtful and conscientious care with which she "held her wealth in trust" for innumerable good objects. It was her aim to benefit the working-classes in ways involving no loss of independence or self-respect. She carefully avoided taking any side in party politics, but she was actively interested in phases of Imperial extension which were calculated to improve the condition of the black races, as in Africa, or the education and relief of the poor or suffering in any part of the world. Her position in England for half a century may well be summed up in words attributed to King Edward VII. , "after my mother (Queen Victoria) the most remarkable woman in the kingdom. "
It was not till 1881 that, when sixty-seven years old, she married William Lehman Ashmead-Bartlett, an American by birth, and brother of Sir E. A. Ashmead-Bartlett, the Conservative member of parliament; and he then took his wife's name, entering the House of Commons as member for Westminster, 1885.