Baroness Burdett-Coutts is now over seventy, and for fifty years her name has been one of the brightest and noblest in England, or, indeed, in the world. Crabb Robinson said, she is "the most generous, and delicately generous, person I ever knew."
Her charities have extended in every direction. Among her first good works was the building of two large churches, one at Carlisle, and another, St. Stephen's, at Westminster, the latter having also three schools and a parsonage. But Great Britain did not require all her gifts. Gospel work was needed in Australia, Africa, and British America. She therefore endowed three colonial bishoprics, at Adelaide, Cape Town, and in British Columbia, with a quarter of a million dollars. In South Australia she also provided an institution for the improvement of the aborigines, who were ignorant, and for whom the world seemed to care little.
She has generously aided her own sex. Feeling that sewing and other household work should be taught in the national schools, as from her labors among the poor she had seen how often food was badly cooked, and mothers were ignorant of sewing, she gave liberally to the government for this purpose. Her heart also went out to children in the remote districts, who were missing all school privileges, and for these she arranged a plan of "travelling teachers," which was heartily approved by the English authorities. Even now in these later years the Baroness may often be seen at the night-schools of London, offering prizes, or encouraging the young men and women in their desire to gain knowledge after the hard day's work is done. She has opened "Reformatory Homes" for girls, and great good has resulted.
Like Peabody, she has transformed some of the most degraded portions of London by her improved tenement houses for the poor. One place, called Nova Scotia gardens,--the term "gardens" was a misnomer,--she purchased, tore down the old rookeries where people slept and ate in filth and rags, and built tasteful homes for two hundred families, charging for them low and weekly rentals. Close by she built Columbia Market, costing over a million dollars, intended for the convenience of small dealers and people in that locality, where clean, healthful food could be procured. She opened a museum and reading-room for the neighborhood, and brought order and taste out of squalor and distress.
This building she presented to the city of London, and in acknowledgment of the munificent gift, the Common Council presented her, July, 1872, in a public ceremony, the freedom of the city, an uncommon honor to a woman. It was accompanied by a complimentary address, enclosed in a beautiful gold casket with several compartments. One bore the arms of the Baroness, while the other seven represented tableaux emblematic of her noble life, "Feeding the Hungry," "Giving Drink to the Thirsty," "Clothing the Naked," "Visiting the Captive," "Lodging the Homeless," "Visiting the Sick," and "Burying the Dead." The four cardinal virtues, Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, and Justice, supported the box at the four corners, while the lid was surmounted by the arms of the city.
The Baroness made an able response to the address of the Council, instead of asking some gentleman to reply for her. Women who can do valuable benevolent work should be able to read their own reports, or say what they desire to say in public speech, without feeling that they have in the slightest degree departed from the dignity and delicacy of their womanhood.
Two years later, 1874, Edinburgh, for her many charities, also presented the Baroness the freedom of the city. Queen Victoria, three years before this, in June, 1871, had made her a peer of the realm.
In Spitalfields, London, where the poverty was very great, she started a sewing-school for adult women, and provided not only work for them, but food as well, so that they might earn for themselves rather than receive charity. To furnish this work, she took contracts from the government. From this school she sent out nurses among the sick, giving them medical supplies, and clothes for the deserving. When servants needed outfits, the Baroness provided them, aiding in all ways those who were willing to work. All this required much executive ability.
So interested is she in the welfare of poor children, that she has converted some of the very old burying-grounds of the city, where the bodies have long since gone back to dust, into playgrounds, with walks, and seats, and beds of flowers. Here the children can romp from morning till night, instead of living in the stifled air of the tenement houses. In old St. Pancras churchyard, now used as a playground, she has erected a sundial as a memorial to its illustrious dead.
Not alone does Lady Burdett-Coutts build churches, and help women and girls. She has fitted hundreds of boys for the Royal Navy; educated them on her training-ships. She usually tries them in a shoe-black brigade, and if they show a desire to be honest and trustworthy, she provides homes, either in the navy or in some good trade.