Harriet Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland

Lady Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana Howard was born into the prominent Whig aristocracy as the daughter of the 6th Earl of Carlisle. In 1823, she married George Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland, one of the wealthiest landowners in the British Empire. A close personal confidante and friend of Queen Victoria, she served as Mistress of the Robes during multiple Liberal administrations, turning her London residence, Stafford House (now Lancaster House), into the preeminent humanitarian salon in Europe.

Deeply moved by the moral evil of chattel slavery, the Duchess turned her immense wealth and social influence toward the abolitionist cause. In November 1852, following the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, she convened a gathering of prominent women at Stafford House to draft An Affectionate and Christian Address of Many Thousands of Women of Great Britain and Ireland to Their Sisters, the Women of the United States of America. Under her leadership, the petition gathered more than 562,000 signatures from women across the United Kingdom bound into twenty-six leather volumes.

When Harriet Beecher Stowe toured Britain in 1853, the Duchess hosted her at Stafford House, introducing her to the British political elite and raising thousands of pounds for fugitive slave relief and black schools in North America. During the American Civil War, she supported the Union cause, helped fund relief for freed slaves, and patronized medical charities and hospitals across Britain.