Spencer Cowper 1670-1728
From Book Owners Online
Spencer COWPER 1670-1728
Biographical Note
Second son of Sir William Cowper, 2nd bart, of the Castle, Hertford. Matriculated at Christ's College, Cambridge 1686, but did not graduate; admitted at the Middle Temple 1687 (barrister 1693). he developed a legal career while also becomingComptroller of Bridge House Estates for the Corporation of London 1690; in 1699 he was tried for the murder of a drowned woman in Hertford, but acquitted. MP for Bere Alston 1705-10, for Truro 1715-27; he became attorney-general to the Prince of Wales after 1714, chief justice of Chester in 1717, and was made a judge in the Court of Common Pleas shortly before his death.
Books
Cowper used an engraved armorial bookplate (Franks 7125); the extent and disposition of his library is not known (he died intestate).
Sources
- Gambier Howe, E. R. J. Franks bequest: catalogue of British and American book plates bequeathed to the ... British Museum. London, 1903.
- Lemmings, D. Cowper, Spencer (1670–1728), judge. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.