BURDETT-COUTTS, ANGELA GEORGINA BUR DETT-COUTTS, BARONESS (1814-1906), English philanthro pist, youngest daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, was born on April 21, 1814 at 8o, Piccadilly, London. Much of her girlhood was spent at her father's town house in St. James's place, and there she met Disraeli, Tom Moore, Samuel Rogers, and others who became life-long friends. When she was 23, she inherited prac tically the whole fortune of her grandfather, Thomas Coutts, 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), devoted herself and her riches to philanthropic work. She had removed in 1837 to the famous house at 1, Stratton street, Piccadilly, taking with her her friend and inseparable companion, Hannah Meredith (Mrs. Brown). In May 1871 she was created a peeress, as Baroness Burdett-Coutts of Highgate and Brookfield, Middlesex. On July 18, 1872 she was presented at the Guildhall with the freedom of the city of London, the first case of a woman being admitted to that fellowship. In 1881, at the age of 67, she married William Lehman Ashmead-Bartlett, an American by birth, afterwards Unionist member of parliament. Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett assumed his wife's name. He had been closely associated with her philan thropic work before his marriage, and for the rest of her life continued to assist her. The baroness lived to the great age of 92, dying at her house in Stratton street, Piccadilly, on Dec. 30, 1906. She was buried in Westminster Abbey.
The baroness was an extremely able business woman, and con ducted her various great philanthropic enterprises herself. More over, she sought to do real constructive work in housing, markets, and the establishment of industries. 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. Though she made no special distinction of creed in her charities, she was a notable benefactor of the Church of England, building and endowing churches and church schools, endowing the bishop rics of Cape Town and of Adelaide (1847), and founding the bishopric of British Columbia (1857). Among her many educa tional endowments may be specified the St. Stephen's institute in Vincent square, Westminster (1846) ; she started sewing schools in Spitalfields when the silk trade began to fail; helped to found the shoe-black brigade ; and placed hundreds of destitute boys in training-ships for the navy and merchant service. She estab lished Columbia fish market in Bethnal Green and pre sented it to the city, but owing to the rivalry of existing vested interests this effort, which cost her over 1200,000, proved abortive. She supported various schemes of emigration to the colonies. In Ireland she helped to promote the fishing industry by starting schools and providing boats. She sought to relieve distress in congested districts of western Ireland by establishing peasant industries. She helped to form the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and was a keen supporter of the ragged school union. She was also associated with Louisa Twining and Florence Nightingale; and in 1877-78 raised the Turkish compassionate fund for the starving peasantry and fugitives in the Russo-Turkish War (for which she obtained the order of the Medjidieh, a solitary case of its conferment on a woman). She was the friend of many famous men and women of her time, in art, literature, and science, of Charles Dickens and of Faraday, among many others. Dickens often acted as her almoner. In short, 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." She was indeed a "British institution," and became a legend during her lifetime.
See Baroness Burdett-Coutts: a sketch of her public life and work, with a preface by Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck (Chicago, 1893) . There are many references to her in the memoirs of her contemporaries.