COWCHER, John (c.1561-1652), of St Swithin, St Helen and St Andrew, Worcester, and Woodmanton, Clifton-on-Teme, Worcs.

The family of Cowcher had been settled in Worcester since at least the second half of the fourteenth century. The great-grandfather of this Member, another John Cowcher, had perhaps been the first of the family to become a prosperous clothier. His grandson, John, this Member’s father, lived in St Andrew parish and served as judge of orphans, bridgemaster, and probably chamberlain.16Worcs. Archives, x496.5/BA 9360, A14, box 1, order bk. 1540-1602, ff. 129, 141, 161. It was he who in 1569 had purchased Woodmanton, a manor in the parish of Clifton-on-Teme, to give the family a patrimony outside the city where it had achieved eminence over several generations.17R.G. Griffiths, ‘An Inventory of the Goods and Chattels of Thomas Cowcher’, Trans. Worcs. Arch. Soc. n.s. xiv. 45. John Cowcher seems to have spelled his surname thus, though the forms Coucher and even Croucher are encountered in the records.18PA, Main Pprs. 29 Aug. 1641. His early life and maternal parentage remain obscure, but he must have been apprenticed to one of the clothiers’ company, Worcester’s premier guild. On becoming free of the company and of the city, somewhere around 1584, he made an unimpeded progress through office in the company and the city corporation. He reached the pinnacle of office in the former in 1595, serving as high master no fewer than three times, and, in the city government in 1621, as permanent alderman. His position on the city’s bench of magistrates was assured for life as a corollary of his status as permanent alderman, of greater import than his year as high bailiff back in 1595-6.

Cowcher took a particular interest in the body overseeing the free school and charities of the city, serving as treasurer for six separate years, and this was perhaps natural for one of a family which was noted for its munificence towards the poor from 1556, when Cowcher’s father had bequeathed rents from a property in Merivale Street in St Andrew parish, to the citizens. Cowcher implemented his father’s bequest, and in due course added to the foundation himself.19Worcs. Archives, 850/BA 4226/4/2-5. On a number of occasions the chamber called upon Cowcher to arbitrate and examine in matters relating to charities.20Worcester Chamber Order Bk. 115, 194, 197, 301, 327. He bought St Oswald’s hospital, and restored the rents to the trustees on condition that they bestowed a pension of £12 per annum on his son, Thomas, and a pound a year each to the almsmen. This judicious mixture of philanthropy and enlightened self-interest characterised Cowcher’s dealings with property in the city: doubtless there were gains both for the citizens and for him.21VCH Worcs. ii. 178. He also benefited from leases of city property, which he acquired through his civic eminence.22Worcester Chamber Order Bk. 147, 211, 410.

Cowcher’s other great contribution to civic life was in steering Worcester’s progress towards a new charter. He was on an early committee to examine defects in the existing charter of 1555; by May 1605 it had identified the securing of separate county status, with its own sheriff and tax accounting arrangements, as the best way forward for the city. Even then, however, Cowcher and his fellow committeemen had recognised that pruning the old charter of defects might have to be an acceptable compromise. 23Worcester Chamber Order Bk. 83, 90. That the city’s desires were thwarted probably owed most to the opposition of Bishop Gervase Babington, who feared the extension of civic authority in the cathedral close.24Worcester Chamber Order Bk. 6-7. Tensions between bishops and the dean and chapter on the one hand, and the city chamber on the other, were to be a recurrent feature of Worcester politics down to the civil war. On 16 June 1615, Cowcher was named once again to a committee charged with reviving the plea of ten years earlier for separate county status. In January 1616, Cowcher and his colleagues were in negotiations with the crown office over the charter, and on 23 March that year the corporation did receive a new charter, which gave Worcester a new court of record, whose justices would proceed on commissions of gaol delivery. This still fell short of what was felt to be the city’s due, and in December 1619 and April 1621, Cowcher was named again to committees pursuing the city’s interest. On 31 July 1621 he was confirmed as the leading and most experienced negotiator at the city’s disposal, when he was created permanent alderman so that his name could be inserted in another charter in draft, which was received in the Guildhall on 16 October.25Worcester Chamber Order Bk. 8-9, 132, 137, 162, 169, 170. Two features of the new charter were rewards for the corporation’s persistent and consistent campaign: the government of the city was now in the name of mayor, aldermen and citizens, and the city was now at last a county of itself.

Cowcher’s involvement in the cause of charter reform pre-dated his first service as burgess in Parliament for the city. It seems highly likely that his repeated election to represent Worcester owes much to his experience in this particular matter. He sat in all parliaments between 1604 and 1624, the 1621 Parliament being particularly important as a possible avenue of influence for achieving the desired charter: Cowcher’s presence in London was naturally useful for the corporation.

Cowcher was not simply the servant of the Worcester chamber on matters of civic organisation. Because of his family background and mercantile career, he spoke for the interest of the cloth trade in the House. The Worcester clothiers had the right to sell their wares in Blackwell Hall in the City of London, and the provincial clothiers were particularly sensitive to challenges from abroad and from those purveying the new, lighter textiles.26Worcs. Archives, 705:232/BA 5955/4b. Cowcher did not sit in the 1625 and 1626 Parliaments because the chamber deferred to the wishes of Sir Thomas Coventry†, Lord Keeper and recorder of Worcester, that gentry clients of his should take precedence over citizens.27Worcester Chamber Order Bk. 49. Sitting once again for the city in 1628, Cowcher returned to his interest in the cloth trade and sat on two committees dealing with it.28CJ i. 887b, 904b. There was an incident in this Parliament which exposed his inclination to prioritise Worcester issues over procedural nicety: he revealed to the House a letter from the chamber complaining about the behaviour of soldiers in the city and thanking him for news of parliamentary business. He had breached rules of confidence, and the matter was referred to committee, but nothing further seems to have developed.29CD 1628 ii. 402. During the 1630s, the city chamber was locked in a protracted conflict with the dean and chapter over the lecturers sponsored by the mayor and aldermen, and their attitude towards seating and services in the cathedral. Cowcher, with John Nashe*, was prominent in the chamber during this war of attrition, but he played no individual part in the affair.30Infra, 'John Nashe'.

Cowcher was returned with Nashe for both the Short and the Long Parliaments, doubtless because of his great experience and his seniority as a servant of the city of Worcester. By this time he was in his late seventies, and no longer wished to sit. He made no impression on the Short Parliament, and in the Long Parliament his only noted intervention came on 19 November 1640 when he spoke for a wide franchise in the case of a disputed election at Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire.31Procs. LP i. 188. But in this Parliament attention was turned to him because of his petition seeking to be excused from attending. He took the Protestation readily enough on 3 May 1641, and he may have been among those helping to further the case of the Worcester clothiers against the Merchant Adventurers.32CJ ii. 133a. On 18 August 1641 he begged the Commons for leave to be replaced, pleading poor hearing and physical infirmity made worse by the rigours of the journey between Worcester and London. There was much sympathy for him in the House, John Wylde pleading his cause. Some such as Sir Arthur Haselrige argued that as Cowcher spent most of his time in the chamber asleep, there was little to be gained by detaining him, but others were mindful of the precedent that would be set, and his request for a new writ to be moved was denied.33CJ ii. 262a; Procs. LP vi. 470, 472, 473, 477.

Although Cowcher’s advanced age cannot be gainsaid, his wish to return home may have been prompted by other considerations. The plight of the cloth trade was all too apparent, and in May 1641 the clothiers of many counties in the southern half of England were complaining of the ‘deadness of trade’ which afflicted their businesses in London.34PA, Main Pprs. petition of clothiers, 6 May 1641. Having done what he could in Parliament for the Worcester clothiers, Cowcher may have thought that he could do more for them and for himself at home. Regardless of whether or not he had received permission, Cowcher went home anyway, and was at the Worcester sessions meeting on 4 October 1641.35Worcs. Archives, 496.5/BA 9360, A13, box 1, sessions bk. 1632-55, unfol. On 27 December John Nashe argued that Cowcher was because of his age unlikely to return to Westminster, and that the city hoped for a new writ, but again Cowcher’s request was denied.36D’Ewes (C), 349. Early in 1641 the corporation had sent pies and capons up to London for Nashe and Cowcher as a New Year’s gift. In 1642 the pie and capons were given to Nashe in London alone.37Worcs. Archives, 496.5/BA 9360, A10, box 3, city acct. bk. 1640-69, unfol. Cowcher never went back.

Despite his protestations in the Commons that he was on the verge of physical dissolution, and despite occasional grants of leave of absence from Parliament which must have meant more to his Commons colleagues than they did to him, Cowcher resumed an active civic role in the 1640s.38CJ iii. 390a; v. 330a, 543b. Some meetings of the sessions court were not held because of the vicissitudes of the civil war, but 34 were held between October 1641 and Cowcher’s death, and he was at all of them.39Worcs. Archives, 496.5/BA 9360, A13, box 1, sessions bk. 1632-55, unfol. It is hard to be certain about Cowcher’s allegiances during the civil war. He withdrew from the House of Commons just when the institutions of government in Worcestershire were being hotly contested between John Wylde* and the emerging royalists, such as Sir John Pakington*, and thus avoided being forced to choose between them, unlike his colleague and kinsman Nashe, who accompanied Wylde on his journey to the county to rally support. It is thus possible that his petition to be replaced was related to the political crisis in the country. If it was a ruse, it certainly succeeded, as he was not named to any of the local committees of Parliament until after the execution of the king. He may have been sympathetic to the royalist military regime in control of the city, as according to Henry Townshend, who should have known, he was among the defenders in negotiations on 26 May and 3 June 1646 with Col. Edward Whalley*, who directed the parliamentarian siege of Worcester.40Diary and Pprs. of Henry Townshend ed. Porter, Roberts, Roy (Worcs, Hist. Soc. n,s, xxv), 212, 215. On balance the evidence suggests that Cowcher’s loyalty to the city was such that he would submit to any de facto power there, as he continued to attend meetings of the city government through the royalist occupation of 1642-6, and again after Thomas Rainborowe* had replaced Whalley and secured the city’s surrender. In this respect Cowcher was typical of his fellow-citizens.

Time eventually caught up with Cowcher in 1652. The date of his death is not known, but he attended his last meeting of the city sessions court on 10 January 1652 and made his will on 20 May.41PROB11/235, f. 393. Although he had provided for his son Thomas by the terms of his purchase of St Oswald’s hospital, his relationship with him gave Cowcher much cause for regret. He had several times paid off Thomas’s debts ‘to avoid his troubles’, which had brought John Cowcher himself ‘low in his estate’. Nevertheless he left a substantial and scattered estate to his children and grandchildren, and characteristically thought of the public good in leaving to the parish of St Andrew his garden adjacent to the church as a burial ground: he may well have been its first occupant.42PROB11/235, f. 393. Edward Elvines* was an overseer of his will. None of his family sat subsequently in Parliament.