Angela was heiress to the Coutts Bank and, in 1837, she inherited a vast fortune. Rather than being profligate she embarked on a life-time of social giving. She was involved in the setting up of the NSPCC and the RSPCA; gave money to train "unfortunates" in various trades; established soup kitchens, ragged schools and self-help clubs. Much of her work was in the East End of London where she founded Columbia Market and a pioneering housing scheme. In 1881, aged sixty seven, she shocked society by marrying her young secretary who was forty years her junior. Even more surprising for the times, her new husband took her surname. Angela Burdett Coutts was the first woman to be created a baroness in her own right and by the time of her death had given more than £3 million to good causes.
