XI.
BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS.
There was upon the London stage, in the year 1815, a pretty actress named Harriet Mellon. Her abilities, though by no means commanding, were yet considerable, and in a certain line of parts she was at that time without a superior. She played soubrette rôles, for which she was fitted by her style of beauty and her vivacious manners. Leigh Hunt refers to her with praise, speaking especially of her acting of chambermaids' parts.
"She catches with wonderful discrimination," he says, "their probable touches of character and manner."
Besides being an agreeable actress, Miss Mellon was a person of unblemished reputation at a time when there were many engaged in her profession of whom the same could not be said. Her first London engagement was obtained through the efforts of Sheridan, who was visiting a friend, a banker, in the town of Stafford, while she was acting there with a strolling company. This gentleman's daughters had made her acquaintance, and were so greatly pleased with her that they insisted on Sheridan's going to see her act. He did this, and was so well satisfied that shortly afterward he obtained her a situation at the Drury Lane Theatre, where she first appeared as Lydia Languish in his own play of The Rivals. Her success was immediate, and she was for several years a favorite with London audiences.
Among the frequenters of the theater where she performed was Thomas Coutts, a well-known banker of great wealth. Although a man of business, and famous for his success in the business world, he possessed a marked taste for literature and the drama, and counted among his friends many of the most noted authors and actors of the day. Nor was he without a tinge of romance in his composition, and the unusual circumstances of his first marriage were no secret. His wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Starkey, was in the house of his niece in the capacity of a servant, when he fell in love with her and married her. They lived together very happily for many years, and had three daughters, Susan, Frances, and Sophia, all of whom grew to womanhood and made advantageous marriages. About 1815 Mrs. Coutts died, and not very long afterward the widower, then eighty-four years of age, became enamored of Miss Mellon, procured an introduction to her, courted her, and married her.
The young lady was accustomed to relate that the first she knew of her future husband was his sending her five guineas on her benefit night; and these coins she never spent, keeping them always laid carefully away by themselves. Upon her marriage she retired from the stage, and made a most excellent and devoted wife to her very aged husband during the remaining seven years of his life. When he died, at the age of ninety-one, he bequeathed to her the whole of his immense wealth. At the expiration of five years she married again, becoming the wife of the Duke of St. Albans. Ten years later she died, leaving the fortune which she had received from her first husband to his grandchild, Miss Angela Burdett, the youngest daughter of Sir Francis Burdett and of his wife, Sophia Coutts. The sole condition attached to the inheritance was, that the young lady, in addition to her own name and arms, should adopt the name and arms of Coutts.
The fortune, at the time Miss Burdett-Coutts received it, was estimated at about three million pounds sterling. To make a proper use of so vast a sum is in itself a career, and an arduous, difficult career. Miss Burdett-Coutts—or simply Miss Coutts, as she was usually called—perceived this, and devoted herself with courage, constancy, and intelligence to the task of wielding worthily the powerful instrument for good or for evil which had been entrusted to her hands. The mistakes which she has made in this endeavor have not been few, nor insignificant; her successes have been many and glorious.
She is a lady who can listen to advice; but, also, she is capable of deciding whether the advice is good or otherwise, and of acting according to her decision. She had common sense, reasonable docility, and a strong will. A person in her position needs to be able to say No, perhaps even more than to be able to say Yes, and Miss Coutts has always been able to utter the harder monosyllable. This useful quality of decision she probably derived from her father, Sir Francis Burdett, who was a man of strong and peculiar character. Impressed while traveling in France at the time of the Revolution with the most ultra-liberal ideas, Sir Francis, on his return to England, gave open expression to them in private and in Parliament. For a letter which he wrote to his constituents denying the right of government to commit for libel (as had recently been done) his arrest was ordered by the House of Commons. Officers were sent to his house, but he refused to surrender, barricaded the doors and windows, and maintained the siege for three days, at the end of which he was captured with much difficulty. Another letter, written at the time of the Manchester riots, brought upon him a trial for libel; he was found guilty and sentenced to three months' imprisonment and a fine of a thousand pounds.
A daughter of this vigorous gentleman we should scarcely expect to find lacking in firmness.
Miss Coutts has given large sums of money to public charities which she knew to be useful and carefully conducted. In this way she has done much good; but she has not contented herself with beneficence made easy. She has herself originated and founded charities; she has by her own efforts abolished abuses: and she has matured educational schemes which her government has seen fit to approve and adopt.
A member of the Church of England, liberal in her views, always tolerant of those who differ, while ardently upholding her own faith, she has long been known for her munificence toward religious objects. She has contributed toward the building of numerous churches, and has erected two solely at her own expense—one at Carlisle, the other St. Stephen's at Westminster, a beautiful edifice, with a parsonage and three schools belonging to it. The three colonial bishoprics of Adelaide, Cape Town, and British Columbia, were founded and endowed by her at an expense amounting in all to nearly fifty thousand pounds. She also founded in South Australia an establishment for the improvement of the natives. She procured Greek manuscripts from the East, for the purpose of verifying the New Testament. She supplied the funds for Sir Henry James's Topographical Survey of Jerusalem, and offered to restore the ancient aqueducts of Solomon to provide the city with water; but the government, although it accepted her proposal and promised the work should be accomplished (at her expense), neglected to keep its word.
With regard to matters of education, Miss Coutts has been equally active in her sympathies. Observing that in the national schools girls were taught many things which the majority of them would not require upon leaving the institution, while sewing and other familiar household branches were ignored, she exerted herself to the utmost to reverse this arrangement, and, in the end, after much delay and difficulty, with success. Then in order that remote rural schools and those of neglected city suburbs might be enabled to undergo the government inspection necessary before receiving their share of the public money granted for educational purposes, she worked out a plan for having them visited by regularly appointed traveling school-masters. This scheme was submitted to the Privy Council and adopted.
But it is perhaps within the area of the city of London that Miss Coutts' good works have been most successful, or, at least, that their results are most apparent. She founded there a shelter and reformatory for young women who had gone astray. Of those who received its benefits during a period of seven years, half were known to have begun new lives, to have remained virtuous and become fairly prosperous, in the colonies. In Spitalfields, when that region of London had become a haunt of misery and destitution, she established a sewing school for grown women, where they were not only taught, but provided with food and work—government contracts being undertaken for them and executed by their labor. From this institution nurses are sent out among the sick of the neighborhood, who are supplied with wine and proper nourishment. Thence, too, outfits are provided for poor servants, and winter clothes distributed among needy women.
In the same squalid region was a place, a plague-spot upon the city for years, known and dreaded by the police under the title of Nova Scotia Gardens. This place Miss Coutts purchased, and, clearing the ground of all the refuse, filth, and squalor that had so long polluted it, she erected thereon the block of model dwellings, now called Columbia Square. This block consists of separate tenements let at low weekly rents; it is occupied to-day by more than three hundred families. Within a short distance stands Columbia Market, one of the most magnificent buildings in northeastern London, and connected with the Great Eastern Railway by a horse-car railroad under especial parliamentary regulations. This spacious and costly edifice was presented by Miss Coutts as a free gift to the Corporation of London, in order that cheap and wholesome food, particularly fish, might be conveniently supplied to a neighborhood more than all others in need of it.
In Victoria Park near by, stands a superb drinking fountain; another for both men and animals adorns the entrance to the Zoölogical Gardens in Regent's Park, and a third stands close to Columbia Market itself. All these are the gifts of the same generous lady.
Among the miscellaneous charities of Miss Coutts may be mentioned an arrangement with Sir Samuel Cunard by which, in a time of great distress, many families were enabled to emigrate. Again, when the people of Girvan in Scotland were reduced to extremities, she advanced a large amount of money to enable those who wished to do so to seek better fortune in Australia. In Ireland, too, when the people of Cape Clear near Skibbereen were perishing of starvation, she sent them food, clothes, and money, assisted many to emigrate, and provided a vessel and suitable fishing tackle to enable others to carry on more efficiently their old means of earning a livelihood. She also greatly aided Sir James Brooke in improving and civilizing the Dyaks of Sarawak, and a model farm is still carried on in that region at her expense, from which the natives acquire some knowledge of agriculture. Already, it is said, the productiveness of their country has been much improved.
One of her most popular schemes was the establishment of the "Shoe-black Brigade," in which boys were tested as to their real character and general fitness for promotion, and in due time were provided with work by railway companies or were admitted to the army or navy service. A most timely and helpful act was the institution of an organization and fund for the relief of Turkish and Bulgarian peasantry during the Russian invasion, in connection with which she sent to the British ambassador more than $150,000. In London, where her labors were so incessant, she connected with the emigration scheme a reformatory or home for poor and unfortunate women, which was established at Shepherd's Bush, in London. After a period of seven years' residence and training in this noble institution, the inmates were sent to the colonies to start life afresh, which many of them did most worthily.
It will not surprise our readers to learn that the Baroness is the Patron of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The deep, tender feeling towards suffering humanity which is the spring of all her charities to the poor, could not exist in a bosom inaccessible to the unworded appeals of the lower animals in their sufferings. Her exertions on behalf of the society have been unremitting, and they are singularly illustrative of her sympathetic and kindly nature. No pain that can be spared or alleviated seems to escape her watchful eye. To mention a single example: Some years ago she wrote to the London Times (September 14th, 1869), complaining of the cruel usage to which cattle were subjected, and suggesting "to all persons engaged in teaching, in whatever rank of life, that some plan should be adopted for inculcating, in a definite manner, principles of humanity towards animals, and a knowledge of their structure, treatment and value to man." The cattle sent up to London from the remote districts of England and Scotland used to suffer intensely in their transit by railway from thirst, and often from hunger. At her own expense she provided the fittings for trucks constructed so as to enable the cattle to eat and drink on the road to London, and such trucks are now in general use on all the great railroads.
In all these widely varied schemes she was a thoughtful and conscientious worker. On coming into possession of her wealth in 1837, she began a life of studious and systematic beneficence, giving largely, not to one particular favorite scheme of charity, but to many and widely-differing objects; and not indiscriminately, but considerately, by keeping statistics of work accomplished and to be accomplished, and gathering innumerable facts with painstaking care, that her noble deeds might not fail of their intention. This method of action she never abandoned. The evil effects usually attending lavish gifts, such as injuring the self-reliance and self-respect of recipients or encouraging pauperism, she avoided as far as possible by most vigilant and continuous supervision.
Miss Coutts' private charities it is of course impossible to estimate; but they are known to have been large. She has always been a liberal and discriminating patron of music, painting, and the drama. She possesses many valuable works of art, selected with excellent taste and judgment, and arranged in the most favorable manner. The entertainments given at her house have been frequently graced by the presence and talents of the best actors and singers of the day, while the conversation has been of the animated kind that occurs when artists, authors, men of science, and men of the world mingle freely in discussion or exchange interesting glimpses of their different professions and experiences. Her hospitality has been at times upon the most generous scale. Upon one occasion she gave a dinner party (one of the largest upon record) to two thousand Belgian volunteers, who were invited to meet the Prince and Princess of Wales, and five hundred other distinguished guests. Yet, in spite of the immense number to be accommodated, we are assured that the entertainment passed off as easily and pleasantly as if there had been but a dozen people present.
She is hospitable to the poor as well as to the wealthy. The beautiful garden and grounds of her villa at Highgate are open to school children, who visit them literally in thousands.
The public and patriotic benevolence of Miss Coutts has not passed unrecognized. She is, and has long been, one of the most beloved women in England. Mr. Julian Young relates that in 1868, when the great Reform procession was passing her house, she was at the window looking on, accompanied by himself and a group of friends.
"Though she stood more out of sight than any of us," he says, "in one instant a shout was raised. For upwards of two hours and a half the air rang with the reiterated huzzas—huzzas unanimous and heart-felt, as if representing a national sentiment."
In June, 1871, the Queen bestowed upon Miss Coutts a peerage, and she became Baroness Burdett-Coutts. In 1872, she was admitted to the freedom of the city of London, and in 1874 to that of the city of Edinburgh.
In 1881, she was married to Mr. William Ashmead-Bartlett, an American gentleman naturalized in England, who had long been her confidential adviser, friend, and man of business. Some were surprised by this marriage, their grounds of objection being the difference in age between the parties, Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett being the younger of the two, and also the fact that a portion of the Baroness's property was held upon such a tenure that she forfeited it if she married. For the first objection, it was certainly the affair of no one but the two most intimately concerned, and their minds were already made up in regard to it; for the second, it was evident that she could afford the loss. Neither of them appeared at all disturbed by the stir which their engagement created, and the wedding took place in due season, the bridesmaids upon the occasion being little girls carrying large bouquets.
It is not desirable, perhaps, that an individual, and least of all a lady, should be burthened with the care and expenditure of so great an estate as that which has fallen to her lot, and it is probable that, as society matures and social science is perfected, such anomalies will cease to exist. It is also true that the best schemes which she has executed belonged properly to the government of her country. Such scenes of pollution as Nova Scotia Gardens could not be permitted by a government attentive to its duties. But so long as governments expend their chief energies and a great part of their resources upon distant and illegitimate objects, leaving their very capitals to grow foul and hellish under their eyes, so long will it be necessary for private generosity to mitigate evils which only the well directed resources of the whole people could remove.