A pair of George IV silver tureens, covers and stands from the Duchess of St. Albans Service, Philip Rundell for Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, London, 1821

Harriet, Duchess of St. Albans

Thence by descent to her step-granddaughter Angela Burdett, Baroness Burdett-Coutts

Christie’s New York, 23 March 1983, lot 213

Christie’s London, 7 June 2011, lot 353

Koopman Rare Art, London, 2011

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Harriet, duchesse de St. Albans

Acquis par descendance par sa petite-fille Angela Burdett, Baronne Burdett-Coutts

Christie's New York, 23 mars 1983, lot 213

Christie's Londres, 7 juin 2011, lot 353

Koopman Rare Art, Londres, 2011

The engraved monogram 'H St A' and coronet are those of the former actress, Harriet Mellon (1777-1837), widow of Thomas Coutts (1735-1822) and first wife of William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St. Albans, a descendant of Charles II, whom she married in 1827 at her house, 1 Stratton Street, Piccadilly, Westminster.

Although Miss Mellon made her debut at Ulverston in the Lake District at the age of 10 in 1787, she did not arrive in London until 1795. Her first appearance there was on 31 January that year at Drury Lane as Lydia Languish in a revival of The Rivals. In fact, it was thanks to the play's author, Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), who had seen her perform in the provinces, that she became a favourite with metropolitan audiences. 'She never reached the first rank of actresses,' according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 'but she was praised for her good-natured readiness to take over parts in cases of illness, afterwards returning with good humour to the secondary roles she was accustomed to play.'

In 1805 in the Drury Lane comedy, The Honeymoon by John Tobin, she 'was very lively and playful' and during the next year, when she was Louisa in the Rev. Mr. Moultree's musical comedy, False and True; or, The Irishman in Italy in London, The Times hinted at her popularity when, upon one of the characters addressing her as, '''My lilly of the valley, my Melon!'' there was a loud burst of applause.'¹

Mrs. Thomas Coutts

It was in 1805 that Miss Mellon became secretly intimate with the wealthy banker, Thomas Coutts. He was still with his wife, Elizabeth Susannah (née Starkie, 1743-1815), who he married in 1763 and by whom he had three daughters, but the closing years of her life were clouded by mental illness. As soon as he was able, Coutts married Miss Mellon; first, clandestinely, on 18 January 1815 and then openly on the 12 April following:

'MARRIED. On Wednesday, at St. Pancras Church, Middlesex, Thomas Coutts, Esq. the opulent banker, to Miss Mellon, the actress of Drury-lane Theatre, who thus becomes the mother-in-law of the Dowager Countess of Guildford, the Dowager Marchioness of Bute, and of Lady Burdett.'²

Miss Mellon had just retired as an actress, making her last appearance as Audrey in As You Like It at Drury Lane on 7 February 1815. Her final salary is said to have been £12 a week, so her generosity reported at the beginning of 1815 was presumably made possible by the support of Mr. Coutts:

'Miss Mellon (the actress) made the poor round her beautiful house [Holly Lodge, built in 1809] on Highgate Hill happy on Christmas Day, by distributing 600 quartern loaves, and 600lbs. of fine beef, to that number of old men; and to every distressed aged female that applied, a chemise, a cloak, a blanket, and wine; and to the children of poverty, one shilling each.'³

Following Thomas Coutts's death on 22 February 1822, the extraordinary extent of his wealth was revealed and widely reported; so, too, was the lavish provision he had made for his widow:

'Various statements have appeared respecting the manner in which the late Mr. Coutts has disposed of his immense property; but we understand the following is correct: Some time previous to his death, he settled upon Mrs. C. the sum of £600,000, with the house in Stratton-street [Piccadilly], all the plate, linen, wines, &c. the service of plate is said to be the most valuable of any in this country, and the stock of wines greater than any two private cellars in the kingdom; together with the house at Highgate, and all its appurtenances. Mrs. C. is likewise left half proprietress of his immense banking establishment, with all monies due to him at the time of his decease. The affairs of the house have been made up since his demise, and it is said there is a balance of £670,000 due to Mrs. C. which sum will be proved under the will. The whole amount of property (with the annual profits of half the banking business) now in possession of this Lady, it is supposed, makes her the richest widow in the United Kingdom.'⁴

Following her husband's death, Mrs. Coutts, 'opulent in person and big of heart,' continued as one of London's most liberal hostesses. The Press delighted in giving details of her various entertainments. One such, a petite dejeuner at her Highgate villa in July 1824, was attended by about 700 ladies and gentlemen of rank and fashion, lead by their Royal Highnesses the Duke of York and Prince Leopold and the Dukes of Wellington, St. Albans and Leinster. We are told that a 'stupendous' temporary room was erected at the rear of the house, the interior of which was decorated 'in a very fanciful style with pink, white, and blue stripes, hanging in close festoons from the room, and forming fluted columns. . . . Within about sixteen columns, tables were laid, four in number, for fifty-four each; and these tables were five times replenished; the first three with every thing served on china, and the last two on massive plate, sent the preceding day by RUNDELL and BRIDGE. . . . There were three waggon-loads of plate used, and forty well-dressed attendants, out of livery.'⁵

Harriet, Duchess of St. Albans

It was from about this time that Mrs. Coutts and the Duke of St. Albans, were often seen in each other's company. Eventually, on 16 June 1827 at her house in Stratton Street, the couple were married: she was 50, he was 26. Scarcely able to believe her good fortune, the Duchess wrote soon afterwards to her friend, the author Sir Walter Scott: '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.'⁶

By all accounts the union was a very happy one. The couple celebrated a year of married life in June 1828 at Holly Lodge with a 'Grand Fete Champetre' attended by the Dukes of Cumberland and Sussex, and many members of the aristocracy and gentry. The Duke and Duchess exchanged gifts: his to her, a suitably inscribed silver basket; hers to him, a six-oared cutter called the Falcon, complete with crew attired in yellow and green silk.⁷

Upon her death nine years later, the Duchess left the bulk of her wealth and collection of the Coutts/Mellon plate to Mr. Coutts’s granddaughter, Angela Georgina (1814-1906). She, who was the youngest daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Bt. (1770-1844) by Sophia (1794-1849), eldest daughter of Thomas Coutts and his first wife, Susan, changed her name by royal licence in 1837 to Burdett-Coutts. In 1871 Miss Burdett-Coutts, who was a friend of Queen Victoria and one of the greatest philanthropists of the 19th century, was created Baroness Burdett-Coutts.

Edward Hodges Baily

A pencil, pen and and ink and brown wash drawing corresponding to the model of these tureens is in the album of designs for plate from Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, now at the Victoria and Albert Museum.⁸ The design has been attributed to the artist Edward Hodges Baily.

Born in Bristol in 1788, Baily went to London in 1807 and was accepted as a pupil by the famous sculptor John Flaxman (1755-1826). After almost eight years in Flaxman's studio, and with several awards from the Royal Academy School to his credit, he joined Rundell, Bridge & Rundell in 1815 at £600 per annum, suggesting that he was already viewed as an established designer. His salary was raised to £1,000 when he became a member of the Royal Academy.

Baily must have become even more important to the firm after the death of Rundell's designer William Theed in 1817, and the Coutts service (later the St. Albans service) of around 1817 must have been among Baily's earliest direct work for the company. Baily's name has also been linked to an impressive monumental covered wine cooler, made in 1821-22 and sold to Thomas Coutts and Harriet Mellon Coutts; four others of the same model were later supplied to George IV. Baily became chief designer/modeller for Rundell's on the death of Flaxman in 1826, but in 1833 he left to work with Paul Storr (then senior partner in Storr & Mortimer), who had himself left as superindendant of Rundell's silver factory in 1819, just after the Coutts service would have been finished.

Notes.

1. The Times, London, Wednesday, 24 September 1806, p. 2

2. The Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Salisbury, Monday, 6 March 1815, p. 4b

3. The Bury and Norwich Post, Wednesday, 4 January 1815, p. 4c

4. The Lancaster Gazette, Friarage, Saturday, 16 March 1822, p. 1d

5. The Morning Post, London, Thursday, 8 July 1824, p. 3c

6. David Douglas, editor, The Journal of Sir Walter Scott 1825-1832, Edinburgh, 1891 7. The Southern Reporter, Cork, Thursday, 26 June 1828, p. 4d

8. Accession no. E.70-1964