Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/282

 became independent of the Church of England (cf., Life of Gray, ii. 263 seq. ; , Life of Colenso, i. 269, ii. 36 seq.).

Miss Burdett-Coutts's first endeavour to enlarge the scope and opportunities of elementary and technical education formed part of her church work. In 1849 she built and established schools in connection with her church of St. Stephen's, Westminster, and in 1876 she enlarged her scheme by founding and endowing the Townshend School, partly from her own resources, and partly from a bequest left at her entire discretion by Chauncey Hare Townshend [q. v.]. The two schools were amalgamated in 1901, under the title of the Burdett-Coutts and Townshend Foundation Schools, and enjoy a high reputation. To complete her educational scheme for the district the baroness founded in 1893 the Westminster Technical Institute, which was handed over to the London County Council in 1901. In regard to the curriculum and administration of these foundations she was fertile in independent suggestion. She was the first to introduce sewing and cookery into elementary schools. At Whitelands (Church of England) Training College, in which she took a personal interest, she insisted on the importance of household economy, and gave prizes for essays in 'Household Work,' 'Country Matters,' 'Thrift,' and 'Household Management.' In 1865, while living at Torquay, she devised a scheme of grouping schools in the rural districts of Devonshire which was adopted by the authorities. She continued her father's interest in the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institute. In 1879 she founded an Art Students' Home in Brunswick Square for girls, the first of its kind in London.

By way of advancing higher scientific education, she endowed at Oxford in 1861 two scholarships for 'the study of geology and of natural science as bearing on geology,' each of 'the annual value of about 1151. . and tenable for two years. They were accompanied by the gift to the university of the valuable Pengelly collection of Devonshire fossils, which she purchased of her scientific teacher, William Pengelly. For Kew Gardens she bought the rare and extensive Griffiths collection of seaweed and Schimper's great herbarium of mosses.

Poor and neglected children were always Miss Burdett-Coutts's especial care. Dickens had encouraged her to subsidise the Ragged School Union, started in 1844, and in his company she examined for herself the squalid poverty of child-waifs in London. Besides liberally supporting ragged schools, she actively aided the shoeblack brigades established about 1851 to provide employment for lads rescued by the ragged schools. In 1874 she made a first contribution of 5000l. to the scheme for training poor boys for a sailor's life on the ships Chichester, Arethusa, and Goliath. With a particularly attentive eye to the physical needs of poor children, she became president of the Destitute Children's Dinner Society, which was founded in 1866. Of a 'small society' for the defence and protection of children she was for a time trustee, and by directing the attention of the home secretary to its work in 1883 helped in the foundation of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children from which she withdrew when its operations were extended from London to the whole country [see, and , Suppl. II]. Urania Cottage, in Shepherd's Bush, a home and shelter for fallen women, was inaugurated by her in 1847 with the aid of Charles Dickens. The rescued women were enabled to begin life anew; situations were found for them at home, and some were sent under safe guidance to the colonies.

The reform of the humble industries, especially in the East End of London, always appealed to her. About 1860 she started a 'sewing school' in Brown's Lane, Spitalfields, where adult women were taught the profitable and improved use of the needle during their spare hours. They were fed and housed for the time, and an organisation created which was able to undertake large government contracts. Medical comforts were at the same time dispensed under the same roof. Professional nurses were engaged to visit the sick poor of the district, and especially to relieve the dangers and privations of childbirth in poor homes. In 1860, when the treaty with France, by encouraging increased importation of French silks, destroyed the occupation of the handloom weavers, Miss Burdett-Coutts by forming the East End Weavers' Aid Association helped the operatives to meet the difficulty of finding other employments. Many families were installed in small shops, and the young girls were trained for service. Her enthusiasm for the colonies led her to send other East End weavers to Queensland or to Halifax, Nova Scotia (1863). In 1869 she sent some 1200 weavers of Girvan,