Spencer Cowper

Spencer Cowper (23 February 1670 – 10 December 1728) was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1705 and 1727. Early life Cowper was the second son of Sir William Cowper, 2nd Baronet of Hertford, and his wife, Lady Sarah Cowper, the diarist, and daughter of Samuel Holled, a London merchant. He was educated at Westminster School, called to the bar in 1693. In 1690 he was made controller of the Bridge House Estates with a residence at the Bridge House, near St Olave's Church close to what is now Tooley Street Southwark. The Sarah Stout Affair Cowper served on the Home circuit, and was acquainted with a Quaker family called Stout in Hertford, who had supported his father and brother during elections in the area. The Stout's daughter Sarah fell in love with him, even though he was already married to Pennington Goodere. One evening at the Spring assizes in March 1699, Cowper went to Sarah's home to pay her the interest on a mortgage. He returned home and the next morning Sarah was found dead in the river. The prosecution asserted that because the body was floating when found, that it must have been put in the water after death. To challenge this idea, evidence was given by the famous physicians Samuel Garth and Hans Sloane. It appears that there was no other evidence to support the charge. The defendants were acquitted.