A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Glenorchy, Wilhelmina Maxwell, Lady
GLENORCHY, WILHELMINA MAXWELL, LADY,
Distinguished for her piety and benevolence, was born at Preston, In North Britain, in 1742. Lovely, agreeable, wealthy, and allied to a noble house, her premature widowhood, and a severe illness, induced her in her twenty-third year to retire from the gaieties of the world, and devote her time wholly to religious duties. She exerted herself principally for the education of youth, and trained up hundreds of children to fill useful stations in society. She endowed a free-school at Edinburgh, built four chapels, and founded and endowed schools in different places, besides educating several young men for the ministry, and bestowing large sums in private acts of benevolence. To enable her to carry out these schemes, she denied herself luxuries, and in every way practised the greatest economy. She died in 1780, leaving the greater part of her property to charitable purposes.