THE BARONESS BURDETTCOUTTS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3807, 11 September 1936, Page 3

THE BARONESS BURDETTCOUTTS

HELPER OF ALL GOOD CAUSES. King Edward VII., when Prince of Wales, declared that after his mother the Baroness was the most remarkable woman in the kingdom. The year 1837 saw Queen Victoria come to the throne, and saw also Miss Angela Burdett come into the possession of the almost unprecedented fortune of her maternal grandfather, Mr Thomas Coutts,, the banker. Founder of the famous banking house of Messrs Coutts and Co., he had married as his second wife the actress Harriot Mellon. On his death in 1822 he left his entire fortune to her, and this included his interest in the bank. Five years later Mrs Coutts married the ninth Duke of St. Albans, and when she died she bequeathed her possessions to Miss Angela Burdett, youngest daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, Baronet. Born in 1814, she assumed the additional name of Coutts in 1837 upon inheriting hen grandfather’s fortune. It is said that she w’as better known by sight than Queen Victoria. When the Baroness appeared on the balcony of her house in Stratton Street on the night of the Diamond Jubilee the crowd broke into such loud and prolonged cheers that an amazed foreign - er asked, “WJho, pray, is that?” The answer came from a cockney, “The Baroness, stoopid. Give ’er another , cheer, boys, and all together.” If ever one titled lady deserved popularity it was the Baroness, for from the very outset of her career she made it the business of her life to aid others. It is impossible, says one

of her biographers, to make any complete record of hei; beneficiaries, public and private. One could gather from the reports of public bodies and churches how much she had subscribed to well-known institutions, but her private gifts were simply multitudinous. Not infrequently she received as many as three or four hundred letters in a day, and almost to the end she endeavoured to open and read every one of them. In this connection it is interesting to note that in 1922 a box containing upwards of six hundred letters from Charles Dickens to M,iss Burdett-Coutts was sold in London to Mr O. R. Barrett, of the United States. Mr C. C. Osborne, who was her private secretary from 1887 to 1898, tells is in a biographical sketch that with her knowledge and permission he had made extracts from some of those letters, and wished he had copied all of them. These extracts are now published in part by John Murray. For over thirty years Dickens and Miss BurdettCoutts were close friends, and he found great pleasure in aiding and advising her. Without being fdrmjally her secretary, he investigated appeals for help, acted as dispenser of her gifts, and often brought under hqr notice cases of genuine distress, which she never failed to relieve. Numerous as are these, extracts from the letters of Dickens, they are far exceeded in number and bulk by those addressed to her by that famous and enterprising personage known as Rajah Brooke. This Englishman, with spirit of the Elizabethan adventurers, conceived the idea of putting down piracy in the East and civilising the savages of the islands. Landing in Borneo in 1838, he gave valuable help to the Sultan, who was engaged in a war with rebel tribes. Brooke’s reward was the title of Rajah and Governor of Sarawak, and true to British form, he set about framing a new code of law for the promotion of peace and justice. Before he died he had the satisfaction of seeing the independence of Sarawak recognised by the English Governmenlt. In this difficult effort to bring liberty to an oppressed people his most indefatigable helper was the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. Hence this large volume of letters. Recognising the value and nobility of his task, she became his friend and supporter and interviewed members of Government on behalf of his scheme, and gave and collected large sums of money 'to help him to carry on.

The various philanthropies which she aided show that her chief interests were neither social nor political. Without regard for creed or nationality, though, of course, giving special consideration to English-speaking peoples, she distributed generous largesse to churches, schools, colleges, universities and all kinds of societies that cared for the poor. Art, literature and science never appealed to her in vain. The influence of Dickens won her help more especially in providing better houses for the poorer workers in London. Emigration to Queerisland and Nova Scotia secured her special interest. She raised a special fund for the peasantry of Roumelia and Bulgaria during the Russo-Turkish war, relieved distress in Ireland, extended the fisheries there and roused the English Government to supply seed potatoes. In 1871 she was created a Baroness by the Queen, “the only instance at that time of a peerage being bestowed upon a woman in recognition of her public achievements.” It may also be added here as indicating the value of her life work that she Was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey. If one seeks her true monument he will find it in the People’s Palace, model dwellings, evening schools, the Westminster Technical Institute and countless other agencies for good. No other woman under the rank of royalty ever did so much for the Church of England. She founded and endowed the colonial bishoprics of Adelaide, Capetown and British Columbia,, built and endowed churches in London, and generously supported such missions as those of Livingstone and Moffat. One may say of her what Johnson said of Goldsmith, that she touched nothing which she did not adorn.

Her home in Stratton Street was recently pulled down, but her favourite residence was The Lodge, Highgate. It was really a place of retreat from a busy world. Her circle of friends and lacquaintances included royalties, statesmen, warriors, actors, ambassadors and all distinguished visitors to London. In 1881, when sixty-seven years of age, she married Mr William Ashmead Bartlett, a gentleman of English descent, but by Nationality an American. The will of the Duchess of St. Albans had stipulated that if Miss Angela Burdett married a foreigner her interest in the banking business should pass to her sister Clara. A compromise, however, was arranged, and the baroness retained two-fifths of the income for life. The marriage gave great offence to Queen Victoria, for Mr Bartlett was less than half the bride’s age, and her Majesty thought the proceeding a reflection upon English womanhood. Hex home was a meeting place, which on one occasion saw Wellington and Soult sitting together and discussing their campaigns. The baroness relates that she saw Wellington’s house stoned and Soult cheered by the mob. Rumour had it that the baroness was to have married the Duke of Wellington.

Among her peculiarities was that she went to Court's Bank every Thursday to listen to the report, that she never knew exactly how to write a

cheque, preferred her carriage drawn by a pair of bays to any motor car, was a stranger to nerves and cares, was hardly ever ill, never complained of the noise and bustle of London, but, as she grew old, thought everybody in too great a hurry, and although belonging to the early Victorian school, never harped on “my .time.”

With a profound attachment to Protestant principles, her early associations kept her in sympathy with the evangelical section of the Church of England, but she was ready to cooperate in good works with people of all creeds. It is said that the most outstanding of her qualities was a remarkable serenity of disposition, coupled with sound judgment and firm determination. To readers of her correspondence the abiding impression of hei; personality was that she practised the principle of noblesse oblige, looked upon her wealth as a stewardship rather than as a possession, and made the welfare of mankind the dominant passion of her life. She died on 30th December, 1906, and the 30,001 people who saw hei- lying in state represented that innumerable company who arise to call her blessed.