3-034-771 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Lady Burdett-Coutts delivering Columbia Market to the Lord Mayor, 1871. 'The formal delivery of Columbia Market by Lady Burdett-Coutts, its beneficent founder, to the Corporation of the city of London, took place yesterday week. Her Ladyship...was there received by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, with the Sheriffs and Under-Sheriffs, in full official state, and by the Markets Committee of the Court of Common Council. A written address from Lady Burdett-Coutts...was read for her by the Earl of Harrowby...She wished, by-the-way, to correct an erroneous notion that prevailed as to the actual cost of the market and hall. The sum so constantly quoted as the cost of that particular building was somewhat in excess of what had been expended on the market, together with the adjoining lodging-houses, road improvements, and purchases of land to effect her objects. She did not make this statement to depreciate the market buildings, which were, as she had wished and intended them to be, very beautiful...When the company departed they were greeted with the singing of the Old Hundredth Psalm by the choir and school-children of St. Thomas's Church, near Columbia-square, accompanied by the band of the Tower Hamlets Rifle Brigade'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.