BARONESS BURDETT COUTTS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3566, 15 October 1880, Page 2

BARONESS BURDETT COUTTS.

It was a somewhat curious revolving of fortune's wheel that brought tho vast wealth to Lady Bimlett Coutts. The originator of the fortune was Thomas Coutts, a banker of the last century. When a young man Coutts formed a somewhat romantic marriage with a servant girl, named Susan Starkio, by whom he had three children, all daughters. These daughters were handsome, and their father's wealth lifted them into good society. One of them married the Earl of Guilford, another married the Marquis of Bute, and the third became the wife of Sir Francis Burdctt. To Sir Francis and his wife was born a daughter, whom they named Angela Georgiana — the subject of this sketch, and of course granddaughter of the old banker. In 1815, Coutts lost his first wife, and very shortly thereafter he married Harriet Mellon, an actress of celebrity, to whom he had been for a long time partial, and upon whom he had settled a hundred thousand pounds sterling while his first wife had been living. He lived twenty years after his second marriage, and at his death, as ho hail

already made handsome settlements upon his daughters, ho left the whole of his enormous property, yielding an income of nearly one hundred thousand pounds per annum, without reservation, to his widow.

The "widow, however, did not remain a 'widow long. In a few years she gave her hand to the Duke of St. Albans, a youth of only two or three and twenty, and nearly related to the royal family, while she must have been full forty. But the Duke was the poorest peer in the kingdom, while the gentle Harriet was the richest woman. The match gave rise to even more scandal than had Harriet's first marriage ; but the Duke cared not. He had been lifted from absolute penury into golden abundance, and he dashed into dissipation that soon brought his earthly career to an end, and Harriet was again left a widow, not only with her enormous fortune, but with the title of Duchess of St. Albans. All that earth could afford of wealth and station was hers, and she did not marry again, though many were the opportunities afforded. Having no children of her own she resolved that the property which she had received from her first husband should revert to his family, and she selected Miss Angela Georgiana, daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, as her heir on condition that she should assume the name of Coutts. Miss Burdett willingly took the name of her grandfather, and, no doubt, very willingly took the fortune. Miss Burdett Coutts was born in 1814, and was married on the 14th August last.