b. 1814-04-21
d. 1906-12-30
Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts was born on 21 April 1814, the youngest daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, a baronet and member of Parliament,
and his wife Sophia Coutts, daughter of the banker Thomas Coutts. Assuming the additional
surname of Coutts in 1837, Burdett-Coutts inherited her maternal grandfather's estate, estimated at £1,800,000—one
of the greatest fortunes of the century.
She spent her life using her fortune to assist local and international charities,
endowing bishoprics in Cape Town, South Africa, and Adelaide, Australia, in
1847, in addition to the bishopric of
British Columbia. She also helped to finance David Livingstone's
1858 expedition to Africa, supported missionary work in the Kingdom of Sarawak in the
1860's, and donated money to the Irish in the
1880's.
Courted throughout her life for her fortune, she developed close friendships with
prominent men such as Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Dickens, and the Duke of Wellington.
She was created Baroness Burdett-Coutts on 9 June 1871. She married for the first time on 12 February 1881, at age 67, William Lehman Ashmead Bartlett, who in 1882 assumed the additional name Burdett-Coutts. Because he was American, Burdett-Coutts
forfeited her inheritance, but she remained wealthy. When she died at her home in
Piccadilly on 30 December 1906, the barony became extinct.
London Times, 31 December 1906, p. 5; see also Sir Bernard Burke and Ashworth P. Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage and Baronetage, The Privy Council,
Knightage, and Companionage (London: Harrison & Sons, 1913), Edna Healy, Lady Unknown: The Life of Angela Burdett-Coutts (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1978).VI 39.8.