anuary
1844. He left a son, Robert, who succeeded to the baronetcy, and five
daughters, the youngest of whom became the celebrated Baroness
Burdett-Coutts. Impetuous and illogical, Burdett did good work as an
advocate of free speech, and an enemy of corruption. He was exceedingly
generous, and spent money lavishly in furthering projects of reform.

See A. Stephens, _Life of Horne Tooke_ (London, 1813); Spencer Walpole,
_History of England_ (London, 1878-1886); C. Abbot, Baron Colchester,
_Diary and Correspondence_ (London, 1861).

(A. W. H.*)

BURDETT-COUTTS, ANGELA GEORGINA BURDETT-COUTTS, BARONESS (1814-1906),
English philanthropist, youngest daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, was born
on the 21st of April 1814. When she was three-and-twenty, she inherited
practically the whole of the immense wealth of her grandfather Thomas
Coutts (approaching two millions sterling, a fabulous sum in those days),
by the will of the duchess of St Albans, who, as the actress Henrietta
Mellon, had been his second wife and had been left it on his death in 1821.
Miss Burdett then took the name of Coutts in addition to her own. "The
faymale heiress, Miss Anjaley Coutts," as the author of the _Ingoldsby
Legends_ called her in his ballad on the queen's coronation in that year
(1837), at once became a notable subject of public curiosity and private
cupidity; she received numerous offers of marriage, but remained resolutely
single, devoting herself and her riches to philanthropic work, which made
her famous for well-applied generosity. In May 1871 she was created a
peeress, as Baroness Burdett-Coutts of Highgate and Brookfield, Middlesex.
On the 18th of July 1872 she was presented at the Guildhall with the
freedom of the city of London, the first case of a woman being admitted to
that fellowship. It was not till 1881 that, when sixty-seven years old, she
married William Lehman Ashmead-Bartlett, an American by birth, and brother
of Sir E.A. Ashmead-Bartlett, the Conservative member of parliament; and he
then took his wife's name, entering the House of Commons as member for
Westminster, 1885. Full of good works, and of social interest and
influence, the baroness lived to the great age of ninety-two, dying at her
house in Stratton Street, Piccadilly, on the 30th of December 1906, of
bronchitis. She was buried in Westminster Abbey.

The extent of her benefactions during her long and active life can only be
briefly indicated; but the baroness must