Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Coutts, Thomas
COUTTS, THOMAS (1735–1822), founder with his brother James of the banking house of Coutts & Co. in the Strand, was the fourth son of Lord-provost John Coutts of Edinburgh [q. v.], and was born on 7 Sept. 1735. He was educated at the high school of Edinburgh. On the death of his brother James in 1778 he remained sole partner of the banking house in the Strand. He became the banker of George III, and of a large number of the aristocracy. He was a gentleman of wide accomplishments, and very charitable. While admitted into the highest circles, he was of economical habits, and amassed a fortune to the value of about 900,000l. He died on 24 Feb. 1822. By his first wife, Susan Starkie, a servant of his brother, he had three daughters: Susan, married in 1796 to George Augustus, third earl of Guilford; Frances, married in 1800 to John, first marquis of Bute; and Sophia, married in 1793 to Sir Francis Burdett, bart. [q. v.] Three months after the death of his first wife, in 1815, he married Harriet Mellon, an actress, to whom he bequeathed the bulk of his property (cf. Notes and Queries, 6th ser. v. 108, 152). She married the ninth Duke of St. Albans, and died in 1837.
[Rogers's Families of Colt and Coutts, 1879, pp. 22–6; Life of Thomas Coutts, 1822; Gent. Mag. new ser. xxxi. 382; F. G. H. Price's London Bankers, pp. 44–5; Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen (Thomson), i. 389–90.]