Harriet Mellon

The Duchess of St Albans
Her Grace; The Duchess of St Albans
	Portrait of Harriet by William Beechey.
Personal details
Born	Harriet Mellon; 11 November 1777
Died	6 August 1837 (aged 59)
Spouse(s)	Thomas Coutts; (m. 1815; died 1822); William Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans; (m. 1827; her death 1837)
Parents	Matthew Mellon

Harriot Beauclerk, Duchess of St Albans (née Mellon; 11 November 1777 – 6 August 1837)[1] was a British banker and actress who eventually starred at Drury Lane. She was successively the wife of banker Thomas Coutts and William Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans. She was widely celebrated for her beauty, and was painted by George Romney and Sir Thomas Lawrence.

Acting career

Mellon, the daughter of Lt. Matthew Mellon, was a strolling player (member of a travelling theatre company) and became an actress.[2]

First marriage

When she was young, she appeared at the Duke Street Theatre, where she attracted the attention of an elderly wealthy banker, Thomas Coutts, founder of Coutts & Co, the royal bank.[3] Following his wife's death in 1815 she married him. From his previous marriage, he had three daughters: Susan Coutts (wife of the 3rd Earl of Guilford), Frances Coutts (wife of the 1st Marquess of Bute), and Sophia (wife of Sir Francis Burdett).[4]

Business and banking

In 1822, after her husband's death, she became very wealthy, have been bequeathed his entire fortune, including his interest in the family bank.[5] She purchased the lease on a country property four miles away at the Holly Lodge in Highgate, holding parties there and at her town house at 78 Stratton Street Piccadilly. She also spent time at her house in Brighton, St Alban's House, 131 Kings Road, on the corner of Regency Square.[6]

Second marriage

In 1827 she married William Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans, who was 23 years her junior.[5] Sir Walter Scott wrote to her to congratulate her. Her reply is quoted in full in his journal for 30 June 1827. They were "old and true friends" and she wrote to him:

What a strange eventful life has mine been, from a poor little player child, with just food and clothes to cover me, dependent on a very precarious profession, without talent or a friend in the world – first the wife of the best, the most perfect being that ever breathed ...and now the wife of a Duke! You must write my life... my true history written by the author of Waverley.[7]

On her death in 1837, her property and fortune went to her stepgranddaughter, selected as heir after careful scrutiny of the possible recipients, who as a condition of the inheritance adapted her name to Angela Burdett-Coutts.[5]

References

Lundy, Darryl (2 December 2010). "Harriet Mellon". www.thepeerage.com. Retrieved 24 January 2012.
Perkin, Joan. From Strolling Player to Banker-Duchess History Today Volume 50 Issue 10 (October 2000).
Healey, Edna (1992). Coutts & Co 1692–1992: The Portrait of a Private Bank. ISBN 0-340-55826-1.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Coutts, Thomas". Encyclopædia Britannica. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 337.
Healey, Edna (January 2012). "Coutts, Angela Georgina Burdett-, suo jure Baroness Burdett-Coutts (1814–1906)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn (subscription required). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 April 2014.
Old and New London Illustrated: A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with numerous engravings from the most Authentic Sources. (6 vols) sub vol. 3&4 combined: Westminster and the Westminster Suburbs. 1881. pp. 278–281.
The Journal of Sir Walter Scott June 30 1827 (published 1891)