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Robert Gray was consecrated and appointed to the See, and in the following year he commenced his labours in Africa. In the same year she endowed the Bishopric of Adelaide in South Australia, and Dr. Short, was appointed to the See. Since then (1858) she has contributed the funds necessary not only to endow a Bishopric in British Columbia, but also to provide for the clergy of the diocese. The sum she devoted to the Church in Columbia amounted to £25,000, and altogether the establishment of the three Colonial Bishoprics cannot have cost her less than £50,000. In addition to all this she founded an institution in South Australia for the education of the aborigines.

Bethnal Green is one of the poorest suburbs of London. The locality formerly known as Nova Scotia Gardens was one of the poorest in the district. The site of these "Gardens" is now occupied by a block of model lodging-houses for the poor, which has been named Columbia Square. In the centre of the square there is a handsome clock-tower. The dwellings are fitted up with baths, wash-houses, and every convenience that can encourage habits of cleanliness and comfort. Over three hundred families live there at low weekly rentals, each in its own separate abode. Columbia Square is the work of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and, thanks to another millionaire, whose name will be long remembered as a benefactor of the London poor, buildings constructed on the same plan and for the same purpose have been set down in more than one of the most squalid districts of the great city. Mr. George Peabody is one of the few who do not need to blush when their good deeds are mentioned in connection with those of Baroness Coutts.

The building of Columbia Square was commenced in May 1858, and finished in May 1862. On April 28, 1869, Columbia Market was opened, another gift of the Baroness to the Bethnal Green district. Her intention was that this market should place within reach of the dense population around it supplies of provisions, and especially of fish, of better quality, and at more reasonable prices than they could be procured through the small dealers and hucksters who had previously monopolized the trade. The market, which was opened in the presence of royalty, is one of the most elaborate pieces of Gothic art in the metropolis. Its cost is said to have been about a quarter of a million sterling, and we have reason to believe that no small part of this sum was spent on architectural detail, mainly with the view of creating employment for stone-masons in the district, of whom a large number were, at the time, out of work and almost destitute.

The building did not succeed as a fish-market. The great wholesale fish-dealers of Billingsgate could not brook a rival establishment trading directly with the coast and thereby depriving them of their profits. For a time the Baroness subsidized the trade in Columbia Market; but the Billingsgate opposition was too powerful, and her efforts to contend with

OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY.

SECOND SERIES.-No. 33.

THE RIGHT HON. ANGELA GEORGINA, BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS.

EVERYBODY knows, at least by name, the famous banking-house of Coutts and Co., in the Strand, London. Perhaps no firm of private bankers in the world can boast of a clientelage so aristocratic The early history of the bank is interesting, and illustrates very favourably the success of Scottish enterprise in England.

In the latter part of the sixteenth century William Coutts, a cadet of the Auchintoûl family, was " provost" of Montrose. His grandson Patrick Coutts, became a merchant in Edinburgh, and died there in 1709 leaving a wife and three children, and an estate of £2,500 to be divide between them.

Patrick's eldest son, John, succeeded to his father's business, an extended it greatly. His firm of John Coutts and Co., genera merchants, was widely known and highly respected. In 1742 he wa elected Lord Provost of Edinburgh, the highest municipal dignity tha can be attained in Scotland. In his later years ill-health made necessary for him to reside in Italy, and he died at Nola, near Naples, March 23, 1750, at the age of fifty-one.

Before leaving Scotland John Coutts had assumed as partnersh eldest son Patrick and a Mr. Trotter. The capital of the new firm w only £4,000. They dealt in corn, acted as commission agents, s negotiated bills on the Continental Bourses. In course of time the business on 'Change became so extensive that they ceased to act general merchants and devoted themselves entirely to banking. In 1 Sir William Forbes, Sir James Hunter Blair, and Sir Robert Her came to be the chief partners in the firm, and the bank was long kno

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as "Sir W. Forbes, J. Hunter, and Co." In 1830 it became the Union Bank of Scotland, one of the greatest banks in the country.*

Lord Provost Coutts left four sons. James became a banker in St. Mary Axe, in London, but subsequently joined his younger brother Thomas in establishing the banking-house of Coutts and Co. in the Strand. He was for some time M.P. for Edinburgh, and died in 1778. Thereupon Thomas Coutts became the sole manager of the bank in the Strand. In course of time the private account of King George was kept at Coutts's, and the principal members of the aristocracy soon followed the lead of the Sovereign. It became fashionable to have an account there; and even yet there is a certain undefinable prestige in paying your bills by a cheque on "Coutts's."

Prudence, economy, and punctuality soon made Thomas Coutts a millionaire. He married first Susan Starkie, who died in 1815, leaving three daughters-Susan, married in 1796 to the Earl of Guildford; Frances, married in 1800 to the first Marquis of Bute; and Sophia, married in 1793 to Sir Francis Burdett, Baronet. The youngest daughter of Sir Francis by this marriage was Angela Georgina Burdett-now the Baroness Burdett-Coutts-the subject of the present memoir.

Miss Burdett was not born heir to the princely fortune which afterwards fell to her lot, and of which she has made so noble a use. Soon after the death of his first wife, Thomas Coutts married, in 1815, Miss Harriet Mellon, an actress more celebrated for her beauty than for her professional talent; and at his death, which took place on February 22, 1822, she succeeded under his will to his entire property.

In 1827 Mr. Coutts's widow was married to William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, Duke of St. Albans. She died on 6th August, 1837, and left the whole of the fortune she had derived from the Coutts' family to Miss Angela Georgina, the youngest and then the only unmarried daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, only subject to an annuity of £10,000 a-year to her husband, the Duke of St. Albans, and to a life-rent in his favour of her mansion in Piccadilly, and of her Highgate properties, including Holly Lodge. With many peculiarities, and perhaps not a few weaknesses, she was a generous and kind-hearted woman; and it is said that she fisposed of her wealth in the way we have mentioned under the convicion that justice required that Mr. Coutts's fortune should revert at her leath to one of his own family.

Sir Francis Burdett, the representative of an ancient Derbyshire

It is stated in Notes and Queries (4th S. X., 398), that Mansfield's Bank, established 1738, was the first private bank in Edinburgh, "except perhaps Coutts's, which is apposed to have had the precedence." Probably neither of them in the early part of eir history limited its business to banking in the strict sense of the term. Both seem have been at first mercantile houses, receiving deposits at interest, and dealing in Ils of exchange at home and abroad.

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