LADIES' COLUMN

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3145, 20 July 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

LADIES' COLUMN

A LIFE OF CHARITY. Th,o Baroness Surdott-Ooutts and Hor Crocd ‘Works. The iPiitomss BuivkU-Cnulls entered on her eighty-tighih year a few months ago. Since sue became the pn-sessor of an enurin. ns fortune of £1,800,000, in the year of our lute Queen’s iiccos.-iun, it is estimated that she ha:- 1 spent considerably over a million vf money in charity.

The King one-, said that, alter his own motlur, she was (he must remarkable woman in England—“the second lady in the land.” To li:iv r known William IV.. been present at Queen V.el aria’s coronation, Iren the riclust lady in the land, and head of a banking-house seen ml only to the Bank of England at the age cf thr-ct-and-twoity, learned the mysteries of “slumming” with Dickens, to say nothing of the fact that the Baroness, in 'spite of her great age, still continues to eo itud her business affairs and c.,unties* charities, make this real Lady Bountiful a notable woman indeed.

It is as a philanthropist that she will be longest remembered. Besides contributing vast sums towards building new churches and schools throughout the country, she erected and endowed at her sole cost the handsome church of St Stephen’s, Westminster, with its three schools and parsonage ; while, at an outlay of £50.000, she endowed the- three colonial bishoprics of Adelaide, Cape Town, and British Columbia. She also built the magnificent, though unsuccessful, Columbia Market. It is recorded that on cne occasion, shortly after coming into her fortune, the young" heiress, whft naturally had suitors by the score, appeared at Court in a dress and jewellery which, she is said to have told Tom Moore, the poet, were altogether worth a quarter of a million of money. Nevertheless, throughout her long and ir-eful life she has preferred devoting herself to charity before all else. It was her religions enthusiasm which prompted her to supply the funds for Sir Henry James’s topographical survey of Jerusalem. There is no poor district of London that does not bear some permanent mark of the Baroness’s wise and bounteous charity, while she was one of the first great Imperialists, for she has spent thousands in sending deserving people to the colonies, ft was in 1871 that the Queen conferred a peerage on the greatest philanthropist of her Majesty’s reign. She has always been remarkably fond of animals, her pets including llamas, which she; calls “ the poor man’s cows,” cockatoos, dogs, cows, goats, and even pigs and fowls, while she takes the keenest interest in the beautiful horses which her husband breeds. Many are kept at her favourite residence, Holly Lodge, Highgate. Costers and their donkeys, Spibalfields weavers, Bermondsey tanners, Irish and Scottish peasants and fisherfolk, Australian aborigines, and the .savage Dyaks of Sarawak are among the many who have materially benefited by her untiring bounty, and who from their grateful hearts will have been wishing the Baroness “ many happy returns of the day.” The Baroness’s favourite residence is Holly Lodge, which stands among the hills to the north of London, and within the beautifully-kept grounds of which is that “Tailors’ Hill” where stood the conspirators to watch the result of their abortive plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament. The grounds of this beautiful abode are made delightful by magnificent groups of trees, while the gardens are filled wit v every variety of flower which the English climate permits to grow. It is this residence, nacre than any olnm, that provides for the aged and beloved Baroness the -sacred, restful atmosphere of home. Here the animals she loves flouns'*.

A delightful, old-world feeding makes the p'liace fascinating; the house itself is low and quite small, being surrounded try a verandah and covered with creepers. It is an ideal abode of peace for one who nus spent a long life in caring for the welfare of countless numbers of her less fortunate fel-low-creatures, whose wish it is that she may long bo spared to continue to bring happiness to many who would not know it but for her kindly heart.