william burdett-coutts·1851 - 1921

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use the down arrow to view option ========================= link to further material not in books ========================= ---------- section b ---------- bacon, john [BWM] baily, edward hodges [BWM] baker, sir herbert [Rem] behnes, william [BWM] bell, john [BWM] belsky, franta [BWM] binyon, laurence [Rem] blomfield, sir reginald [Rem] blunden, edmund [Rem] boehm, sir edgar [BWM] brock, sir thomas [BWM] butler, james [BWM] burdett-coutts, william [Rem] burnet, sir john james [Rem] ========================= ---------- section c ---------- chantrey, sir francis [BWM] churchill, sir winston [Rem] cockerell, professor charles [BWM] comper, sir ninian [BWM] ========================= ---------- section d ---------- derwent wood, professor francis [Rem] dick, sir william reid [BWM] drury, alfred [BWM] ========================= ---------- section e ---------- epstein, sir jacob [BWM] ========================= ---------- section f ---------- flaxman, professor john [BWM] frampton, sir george [BWM] ========================= ---------- section g ---------- gill, eric [BWM] gleichen, count victor [BWM] goscombe john, sir william [BWM] gotto, captain basil [BWM] ========================= ---------- section h ---------- haig, field marshall earl douglas [Rem] hepworth, philip [Rem] holden, charles [Rem] hutton, john [Rem] ========================= ---------- section j ---------- jackson, philip [BWM] jagger, charles sargeant [Rem] jones, captain adrian [BWM] ========================= ---------- section k ---------- kennington, eric [BWM] kenyon, colonel sir frederic [Rem] kipling, joseph rudyard [Rem] ========================= ---------- section l ---------- lafontaine, colonel cart de [Rem] lantéri, professor édouard [BWM] ledward, professor gilbert [BWM] lewis, sir robert [Rem] lloyd george, earl dwyfor - om [Rem] lorimer, sir robert [Rem] lutyens, sir edwin - om [Rem] ========================= ---------- section m ---------- mackenall, sir bertram [BWM] mallock, vivien [BWM] marochetti, baron carlo [BWM] marsh, sir edward howard [Rem] maufe, sir edward [Rem] mcmillan, william [BWM] melchett, lord [Rem] millington, major tasman [Rem] mills, john w [BWM] mond, sir alfred [Rem] ========================= ---------- section n ---------- nash, john [BWM] nightingale, florence - om [Rem] ========================= ---------- section 0 ---------- orpen, sir william [Rem] owen, wilfred [Rem] ========================= ---------- section p ---------- pegram, henry alfred [BWM] poole, henry [Rem] ========================= ---------- section r ---------- reid dick, sir william [BWM] roberts-jones, ivor [BWM] rosenburg, isaac [Rem] ========================= ---------- section s ---------- sassoon, siegfried [Rem] shepheard, sir peter [Rem] singer sargent, john [Rem] soissons, louis de [Rem] spencer, sir stanley [BWM] ========================= ---------- section t ---------- thornycroft, sir (william) hamo [BWM] toft, albert [BWM] turner, alfred [BWM] tweed, john [BWM] ========================= ---------- section w ---------- wade, george [BWM] ware, major general sir fabian [Rem] webb, sir aston [BWM] westmacott, sir richard [BWM] wheeler, sir charles [BWM] winter, faith [BWM] wood, francis derwent [BWM] worthington, sir hubert [Rem]

William Lehman Ashmead Bartlett was born the second son of Ellis Bartlett, a merchant, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA in 1851. His grandparents had been British subjects. In 1861, shortly after his father's death, he was sent to England to be educated. He studied first at Uppingham and then Keble College, Oxford in 1870 and subsequently graduated from Christ Church, after which he studied law. He was younger brother of the politician Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett (1849-1902) and uncle of the noted war correspondent Ellis Ashmead Bartlett.

“With the assistance of Sir Fabian Ware he was instrumental in thwarting the attempt by the Cecil family and its allies to overturn the Fundamental Principles of the IWGC ”

Whilst at Oxford he became acquainted with the famous millionairess Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906) to whom he afterward became private secretary. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8 he acted as almoner for her Turkish Compassionate Fund and was awarded the Star of the Order of Medjidie (Second Class) by the Sublime Porte. On his return to England, he published a book on the Russo-Turkish War and cut his journalistic teeth working for his brother's weekly paper England.

In 1878-79 he travelled to Ireland to organise the Baroness's scheme to assist the relief of distressed districts and he also subsequently implemented her scheme to assist Irish fishermen.

He married her on 12 February 1881. The marriage caused much comment in the press, not only because the bride was 37 years older than the groom, but also because as a condition of her nuptials she had to forfeit a considerable portion of the wealth she had inherited. It was a happy union, although inevitably without children.

That same year Burdett-Coutts became heavily involved in backing the establishment of the North Western Coal & Navigation Company which extracted coal and opened up South Alberta in Canada.

In 1882 by Royal Assent he changed his name to Burdett-Coutts, but was not granted the use of a title. Given his wife's interests, it was hardly surprising that he threw himself wholeheartedly behind her charitable schemes. He studied the question of the supply of food for the poor in London and, with her assistance, he re-opened the Columbia Market for the sale of fish and vegetables.

He was keenly interested in horse breeding and founded and owned the Brookfield Stud.

He was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Westminster in 1885 - a seat he held until his death. One of his earliest successes in Parliament was the carrying of the Hampstead Heath Act 1885 which added Parliament Hill and 300 acres as public recreation ground.

He served as Master of the Turners' Company in 1888 and 1889. He became a Trustee of the Baltimore Fishery School and a Governor of Christ's Hospital. In 1900 he served as The Times war correspondent in South Africa and the reports he filed on the care of Britain's sick and wounded when published in England in June that year led to rancorous exchanges and uproar in the House of Commons, the establishment of a Royal Commission of Enquiry and the permanent reforms in the care of the army's health that followed.

Indeed - the soldier sculptor Captain Basil Gotto, in his memoirs, goes so far as to attribute the performance of the Royal Army Medical Corps in two World Wars directly to the influence of Burdett-Coutts. A deft behind-the-scenes parliamentarian, Burdett-Coutts was a prominent advocate of railway reform and a prime mover behind the establishment of the Board of Trade Committee of Enquiry, which led in turn to passing of the Railway (Accounts and Returns) Bill in 1910. With the assistance of Sir Fabian Ware he was instrumental in thwarting the attempt by the Cecil family and its allies to overturn the Fundamental Principles of the IWGC in the House of Commons on 4 May 1920; he personally led the debate.

In 1921 he was sworn of the Privy Council and died on 28 July that year in London.