Angela Burdett-Coutts, English Philanthropist
Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts (April 21, 1814 - December 30, 1906) was an English philanthropist. Burdett-Coutts was widely known as the richest heiress in England. She was a great collector of paintings, including many Old Masters. She was a subject of public curiosity, and received many marriage proposals. She inherited the country house at Holly Lodge Estate in Highgate, which was then just outside London, where she was famous for holding receptions. When she was 67, she married her 29 year old secretary, William Lehman Ashmead Bartlett, who changed his surname to Burdett-Coutts. Because of her husband's American birth a clause in her stepgrandmother's will was invoked and Burdett-Coutts forfeited three-fifths of her income to her sister. She spent the majority of her wealth on scholarships, endowments, and a wide range of philanthropic causes. One of her earliest philanthropic acts was to co-found (with Charles Dickens) a home for young women who had turned to a life of theft and prostitution. She avoided taking sides in partisan politics, but was actively interested in improving the condition of indigenous Africans, and the education and relief of the poor or suffering in any part of the world. She died of acute bronchitis in 1906, at the age of 92. Engraving by Johnson, Wilson & Company, 1874.
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