Lady Harvey on Loch Goil. An illustration of Cowper's yacht, by the author, from his book Jack-All-Alone.
Francis Cowper (14 January 1849[1][note 1] – 28 May 1930)[3] was an Englishyachtsman, author, illustrator and journalist who was influential in popularising single-handed cruising.[3] He has been credited as "the forefather of modern cruising",[4] and his books "laid the foundation" of the pilot guides used by yachtsmen today.[5] As an author he also saw some commercial success with a number of published adventure and romance novels.
He was initially Francis Cooper but resumed the original spelling of Cowper by deed-poll in 1885, and was the second son of five children to Henry Cooper of London. He studied classical history at The Queen's College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1867, graduating B.A. in 1871 and M.A. in 1875.[6][7]
Cowper learned to sail on the Upper Thames, hiring catboats with friends when he was an undergraduate at Oxford.[6] In 1870, in his final year at university, he spent his summer vacation in Auray, Brittany in northern France, sailing a small dinghy in the Gulf of Morbihan and out into Quiberon Bay.[6]
Between 1892 and 1895,[8] Cowper circumnavigated the British Isles, exploring practically every river and creek along the coast.[9] He also crossed the English Channel to France and Belgium.
Cowper's most well-known work, Sailing Tours, describes these voyages and was published in five volumes between 1892 and 1896. Original copies are now quite collectable, and a full set can fetch as much as £500.[5] In 1985, Ashford Press published a facsimile reprint of all five volumes.
Cowper originally undertook the voyages documented in Sailing Tours, mostly single-handed, in the yawlLady Harvey, a 44 foot (13 m) Dover fishing lugger built in 1867. In his 1921 book Single-Handed Cruising, Francis B. Cooke claimed that no amateur yachtsman had ever single-handed a larger vessel.[9] Cowper sold Lady Harvey in 1895,[5] then building a ketch of his own design, Undine II, which became his favourite but which he sold in 1899. He next owned a yawl named Zayda, followed by a French fishing lugger, Idéal, and a 14-ton cutterLittle Windflower. In 1921, Cowper purchased the 41 foot (12 m) cutter Ailsa, which was to be the last boat he owned.
Sailing Tours continued to be cited in sailing guides, with Neville Featherstone describing Cowper's writing as "a rich blend of navigational facts laced with his own semi-libellous observations on the world around him".[8]Alan Titchmarsh described it as a "rich source of inspiration" for his 1999 novel, The Last Lighthouse Keeper.[10]
Cowper also wrote several adventure and romance novels. One of these, The Island of the English (1898), was described as having "a strong, compelling note of verity" and "a vivid, flexible style".[11]
On December 28, 1876, Cowper married fellow author Edith Elise Cadogan, daughter of the Rector of Wicken.[12][13] They made their home on the Isle of Wight and Edith bore ten children; three did not survive infancy[12] but their eldest son, Frank Cadogan Cowper, grew up to become a recognised Pre-Raphaelite artist.[14] The marriage was troubled — Edith accused Cowper of violence and frequent infidelity — and they divorced in 1890.[15][16] His brother, Colonel Harry Cooper CMG CBE, became ADC to Queen Victoria from 1898 to 1901 and to King Edward Vll from 1901 to 1904.[17][18]
^His baptismal record (Baptisms solemnized in the Parish of St Botolph. Bishopsgate City of London, in the year 1849) shows him as being born on 14 January 1849 and baptised on 21 February 1849.[2]
^London Metropolitan Archives (2010). "Reference Number: P69/BOT4/A/01/Ms 4519/5: Baptisms solemnized in the Parish of St Botolph. Bishopsgate City of London, in the year 1849". London, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1917. Provo, Utah: Ancestry.com. p. 237.
^"Cowper, Frank Cadogan, R.A. - The Golden Bowl". Sotheby's. 2012. Archived from the original on 28 March 2016. Retrieved 27 March 2016. Frank Cadogan Cowper was born in Wicken, Northamptonshire in 1877. His father was Frank Cowper, an author who specialised in writing yachting novels and was the grandson of the Rector of Wicken.
Works related to Frank Cowper at Wikisource
