Angela Burdett-Coutts: founding mother of women's philanthropy

1814-1906

Angela Burdett-Coutts inherited the vast wealth of her grandfather, the banker Thomas Coutts, and though estimates of her inheritance varied, it seems likely that she inherited some £600,000 in cash and an income of around £50,000 per year from a share in the bank.

It was an almost inconceivable fortune at the time.  And, whilst there had always been women who were heiresses to landed property, it had never been known for a young woman of 23 years to possess such a staggering sum. 

She lived to her 92nd year and was the first woman to be made a Baroness in her own right, in recognition of the lifetime of philanthropy that flowed from her astonishing wealth.

Among the vast array of causes Angela committed time and money to were the rehabilitation of prostitutes; providing schools in the poorest parts of London; pioneering good quality housing for the working poor and the construction of Columbia Market to improve the supply of fresh food at affordable prices to the poor of London’s East End.

She was an early patron of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC); established a fund to support Muslim refugees from the Russo-Turkish war; and set up schemes in southern Ireland to retrain peasant farmers, starving as a result of the potato famine, to become deep-sea fishermen.

When Angela died in 1906 she was buried in Westminster Abbey, having given away an estimated £4m during her lifetime, leaving a relatively modest estate of £79,000.

And in case Angela Burdett-Coutts comes across as a one-dimensional paragon of Victorian virtue, it’s worth noting that her private life was complex and surprising.  For 18 years she suffered the attention of a ‘stalker’.  In her thirties she proposed to the 78-year-old Duke of Wellington (he gently turned her down), and in 1880 when she herself was 66, she scandalised polite society by marrying a man of 29.  She ignored the Archbishop of Canterbury’s suggestion that she might adopt him instead!

Susan Elizabeth has 25 years’ experience in the voluntary sector. She was Chief Executive of the Camelot Foundation 2001-2006, developing programmes to reconnect marginalised young people to the mainstream of UK life. Prior to that she was Director of Grants and Development at health think tank the Kings Fund, and Deputy Director of the National Council for One Parent Families. Susan now works as a freelance consultant, with clients in the funding and voluntary sectors. She is a Trustee of BBC Children in Need and of the Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charity and is a non-executive Director of the Probation Service in Sussex.

This is an excerpt of a longer article she wrote for the Association of Charitable Foundations’ Trust and Foundation News, December 2002.