A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Coutts, Angela Georgina Burdett
COUTTS, ANGELA GEORGINA BURDETT,
Is distinguished as possessing more wealth than any other private woman in the world; and a far higher distinction is hers also, that she is using her immense riches in the noblest works of charity.
Miss Burdett Coutts is the youngest daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, Bart., late of Bramcote, county of Warwick, a philanthropist and reformer, whose political career is well known. Her mother was Sophia, youngest daughter of Thomas Coutts, Esq., the opulent banker of the Strand. The family of Burdett, enriched by alliances with the houses of Camville of Arrow, Bruin of Bramcote, and Fraunceys of Foremark, can be traced to one of the soldiers of the Conquest. But whatever the ancestry of Miss Burdett Coutts might have been, it can confer no honour on her name so noble as do her own benevolent deeds. She was born April 26th., 1814, and carefully trained in those religious sentiments which develop the best faculties of the female mind. She was not educated as an expectant heiress, because her grandfather's marriage with Miss Mellon, the actress, and his gift by will of his whole fortune to this, compararatively, young wife, must have deprived his children of any expectancy from the step-mother, who subsequently married the young Duke of St. Albans. But the amiable, interesting, and affectionate Angela Burdett, was ever a favourite with her step-grandmother; and as the latter had no children or near relations of her own, she justly determined the fortune she had received from her first husband should return to his family, and wisely selected the youthful Angela Georgina Burdett as her heiress. One condition only was annexed to the possession of this vast property—that the heiress should assume the additional surname and arms of Coutts, which, by royal licence, was permitted. In September, 1837, the subject of this memoir took the style and surname, and came into possession of her fortune; she was then twenty-three years of age.
Since Miss Burdett Coutts came into possession of her fortune, she has been indefatigable in her works of benevolence. Besides her private charities, which are innumerable, she has given largely for missionary purposes; to assist religious societies; endowed the see of a bishopric in Adelaide, South Australia; and bestowed thirty thousand pounds sterling to build and endow a church, with parsonage-house and schools in Westminster, London! Who, among the living noble and rich men of England, has done deeds of disinterested benevolence to be compared with these? A woman is now the leader of British charities; and the name of Miss Burdett Coutts is honoured throughout the Christian world.