Winter 2005 no. 55
and start afresh. Dickens threw himself into the
project heart and soul. He advised her on the right
location and when a property eventually turned
up, a house with a garden in Shepherd's Bush, he
supervised the alterations, organised the furniture,
worked out a routine and even organised a singing
master. They called the house Urania Cottage. The
women were passed on after serving their time in
a local prison. The regime was far ahead of its
time in that it was run on a marks system. The
emphasis was on reward and not punishment,
though truly incorrigible cases were - sadly but
inevitably - sent back to where they came from.
Eventually, of the 57 women who entered Urania
Cottage 33 were trained in domestic skills and left
the country (passage paid) to start a new life in
the colonies, where several married and had
children. One or two even returned later to thank
their benefactress (by this time Dickens was dead).
Though she employed a matron and staff to run
the programme, she took an active interest in the
developments, even to the point of arguing with
Dickens about the colours of the uniforms. Urania
opened Angela's eyes to the depth of the hardship
and the conditions which had shaped these
women's lives.The next project was to try to
change the conditions that caused such hardship
and desperation in the first place. She decided to
build homes for workers amid the slums of
Bethnal Green. Again Dickens came to her aid by
taking her to see model buildings and helping her
to establish contacts with the right kind of people,
such as public health experts and architects. She
wanted to build single dwellings but, on Dickens'
recommendation, she decided to build flats to save
precious countryside and to make it easier to
provide communal utilities like gas and water.
Again,- it was a model project with all sorts of
innovations, which some called luxuries, including
a large centrifuge for drying clothes on the top
floor.By 1843 Dickens was helping Angela Burdett
Coutts to use her fortune in more targeted ways.
More projects followed, some more successful than
others, but they all had the same aim: to change
circumstances or provide the tools that would
enable people to earn their own living and -
equally important - gain self-respect.The
association with Dickens continued. He advised
her on good causes and more or less acted as an
unofficial secretary. However, by 1853, the
practical and business aspects of moral and
Christian duty were taking their toll and Dickens
advised her to engage the assistance of his sub
editor, W.H. Wills. Perhaps it was just as well
because, by now, Angela was casting her eye
farther afield, founding bishoprics in Africa and
Australia. Dickens, who was all too aware of the
needs at home disapproved of these exotic forays.
Meantime, he had found a new passion - acting -
in the company of Wilkie Collins. Angela, for her
part, disapproved of Dickens' fascination for the
stage (even though her own benefactress, Harriot
Mellon, had been a showgirl). As it happens, it
was the stage that would be indirectly responsible
for ending their friendship, for that was how
Dickens met Ellen Ternan. Angela did everything
in her power to engineer a reconciliation between
Dickens and his wife, but to no avail. Eventually,
she wrote that she could not longer receive him
and more or less severed contact. Why? Probably
because at heart she was a Victorian. She had such
a deep-rooted belief in moral rectitude that there
was no margin for error. Years before, her father's
former mistress had appealed to her for help via
intermediaries. It fell on deaf ears. Angela was
adamant in her refusals because otherwise she
would have had to admit that her late father was
capable of playing away from home. This Victorian
mindset manifested itself in other ways as well. It
seem to me that, without wishing to denigrate
such good works and commitment, Angela's
mission was to improve the plight of the deserving
poor; she did not feel called to improve their
station. She was no reformer.During her lifetime
Angela Burdett Coutts was a much-loved national
figure. She made such a difference to people's lives
that Queen Victoria took the unprecedented step
of elevating her to the peerage. But even that did
not earn her a place in history. Unlike, for
example, Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale, and
later Emmeline Pankhurst and Nancy Astor, she
does not rank among that small army of women
who actually fought against the system and
changed it. Perhaps that's why, sadly, most of us
would walk past that portrait in the Royal
Marsden without giving it a second look.
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The Dutch Dickensian Volume XXV
