Burdett Coutts

Burdett - Coutts, The Right Honourable Angela Georgina, Baroness, daughter of the preceding, was born in 1814, succeeding in 1837 to the great wealth of her grandfather, Thomas Coutts. This she has largely devoted to charitable purposes, making for herself a reputation unique among her peers. Among other benefactions she endowed the three colonial bishoprics of Adelaide, Cape Town, and British Columbia; paid for Sir Henry James's topographical survey of Palestine; established a shelter and reformatory for fallen women; presented to London Columbia Market; built model-dwellings and drinking fountains; laid out recreation grounds; assisted the People's Palace; fitted out poor families for emigration; started the shoeblack brigade; in a word, she has liberally promoted every humane object. In 1871 she was made a peeress; in 1874 presented with the freedom of the City of London, and in 1881 married to Mr. William Lehmann Ashmead-Bartlett, an American, who in 1882 obtained the royal licence to use the name of Burdett-Coutts.