Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1907-01-04
GREATEST CHARITY
WORKER Is DEAD.
Baroness Burdett-Coutts of England Was
Called Second Lady in the
Land"

LONDON, Dec. o1.-BarOneSS Bur
dett- Coutts. who has been i'll at her res
idence here since Christmas eve, died
Sunday, aged 90 years. Besides depriv
ing the country of one Of it's greatest
and most famous philanthropists, the
death removes from London Il unique
personality and an interesting social fig
ure. She lived during the reigns of five
British sOuvereignS. Inherting an i'm
mense fortune, she SO used it as to die
beloved by the whole nation.
King Edward, while fr:nce of Wales:
called the. baroness the second lady of
the land" giving her the next position
after his queen-mother, Victoria. The
baroness, a member of the peerage in
her own right, as a warm personal friend
of Queen Victoria, was a prominent hg-
ure at the coronation of the young ruled.
Had Fortune OF $1o,ooo,ooo.
Had the baroness lived until next
April she would have been % years old.
At the age of % she became the heiress
to a fortune of nearly $10,O0O,OOO. So
unostentatiousy was her benefcence
spread about that such a list could never
be compiled.
The baroness came into the possession
of the fortune because she was the
favOrite granddaughter of the wife of
Thomas Coutts, who, though she died
Duchess of st. Adams, bequeathed the
whole of her wealth-thirteen tons of
English sovereigns-to the young girl,
then known as Miss Coutts In 1887
Miss Coutts succeeded to the inheritance
and became the head of the banking
house, coincidentally with the accession
of Victoria to the throne. When Ed
ward VII. was crowned the one woman
in the coronation throng who had seen
the kings mother take the scepter in
Westminster Abbey sixty-seven years
before was Baroness Burdett-COutts.
Her interest'in the poor of London had
been excited by Charles Dickens, whom
she knew intimately. The first thing &C
compIished by the baroness was to erect
300 model homes in the tenement dis
wont to make headquarters. Following
this Columbia Square, and Columbia
Market, well known spots in London,
were transformed, through the benefac-
tons of the baroness:
st. Stephens church at Westminster,
with it's three schools and parsonage:
erected at a cost of 100000, is one of
the monuments to her liberality. IRE
spective of her own religious ideas she
endowed three colonial bishoprics of
Adelaide, Cape Town and British Col
lumbia, and afterward built a church
at Carlisle.
Thousands were saved from death and
she organized the Turkish compassionate
fund for the relief of those driven from
their homes by the Russian soldiery III
1877. For this the Sultan of Turkey
conferred upon her the Order of the
Medjidie.
Immense Sums for Irish.
Immense sums of money have been
distributed from her gifts to relieve des-
titution and want among the Irish peas
Dtr nd on of thn most C110OpSSfnI of
all the philanthrOpiC enterprises was her
assistance of the Skibbereen fishermen
when famine stalked through the land.
The baroness was the pioneer of re-
formator for women in Great Britain
and she was a chief supporter of the
Destitute Children's Dinner society, an
organization which provides 100000 din
ners a year.
A conservative estimate of the an
nual donations which the baroness made
to different charities during latter years
would place the figure at not less than
100000.
The baroness was raised to the peer
age by Queen Victoria in 1871. The bar
oness also held the freedom of London,
been conferred upon woman, and she
held a like honor from the City of Edin-
burgh.
The baroness was not married until
she was 6S years old. Her husband,
thirty-two years younger than she, was
William Ashmead- Bartlett, an American
from Plymouth, Mass. He went to
England and there was educated. In the
RussoTurkish war Mr.. Bartlett was the
special commissioner having charge OF
the distribution of the immense rellef
fund given by the baroness. Mr.. Bart
lett, by special dispensation, assumed the
name of Coutts. and has been in parlia-
DIV