Angela Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906) was an incredibly wealthy woman who made a career out of charity. During her life she gave away between £3 and £4 million.

Her mother was part of the Coutts banking family while her father was a baronet and a radical MP but, despite this well-to-do background it was not obvious that Angela would inherit great wealth. However, in 1837 she inherited a fortune thanks to her step grandmother, Harriot Mellon Coutts (an ex-actress who made some rather good marriages).

At 23 she was the richest heiress in England. Angela declined a number of marriage proposals choosing instead to set up home with her companion and ex-governess Hannah Meredith. When Hannah married her husband, Dr. William Brown, became Angela’s resident doctor.

After setting up allowances for her mother and sisters Angela used her fortune to support a huge variety of charitable causes. Her charity was thoughtful and practical, for example in an attempt to reduce maternal death rates she employed trained nurses to attend poor women during childbirth. Nor did she avoid controversial causes. During the Russo-Turkish War in 1877, she made strenuous efforts to support Muslim refugees and, with help from Charles Dickens, she set up Urania Cottage in an effort to rehabilitate former prostitutes. In recognition of her philanthropy she was granted a peerage in her own right and became Baroness Burdett-Coutts in 1871.

At the age of 67, she scandalized polite society by marrying a man of 29, ignoring the Archbishop of Canterbury’s suggestion that she might adopt him instead. Their marriage was apparently happy and she lived for another 27 years. She is buried in Westminster Abbey.