Agnes Cowper aka Agnes Shell (born c. 1559) was an English servant and vagrant. She lived in London and her life was recorded in detail as neighboring parishes tried to avoid her being dependant on their charity.

Life

Cowper was born in the parish of

St Olave Silver Street St Olave's Church, Silver Street was a church on the south side of Silver Street, off Wood Street in the Aldersgate ward of the City of London. It was dedicated to St Olaf, a Norwegian Christian ally of the English king Ethelred II. The churc ...

. Her father was William Cowper and he did embroidery. Her mother's name is not recorded, but after her father died she remarried to a man called William Shell who was a capper. Her mother and her new stepfather also died. Her stepfather left her an inheritance at the age of twelve of £6 3s 4d. William Giblett was one of the executors and he was also a capper. She became his apprentice working for nine years until he too died. Giblett's executor was Gabriel Wood and in time both Cowper and Giblett's widow went to work for him. Making caps was a skilled profession that was protected by law. In 1571 under the reign of

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudo ...

a new law was passed requiring men to wear a thick knitted cap every Sunday with a penalty fine of 3s/4d for anyone who failed to comply. The caps so worn had to be made in England as the purpose was to protect the trade. Cowper herself realised at this time that the capping business was in decline but she stuck with it until the 1590s when she was about thirty and out of work. She had no skilled work so she took to unskilled work. She was twelve years with a

costermonger A costermonger, coster, or costard is a street seller of fruit and vegetables in British towns. The term is derived from the words ''Costard (apple), costard'' (a medieval variety of apple) and ''monger'' (seller), and later came to be used to des ...

named Goodwife Cleere and then as a servant for the Dutch Rossendale family until the recently widowed father decided to return to the continent. From when she was about fifty, she could only find irregular work as a

charwoman Charwoman, chargirl, charlady and char are occupational terms referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the ho ...

or begging. The

Poor Relief Act 1601 The Poor Relief Act 1601 ( 43 Eliz. 1. c. 2) was an act of the Parliament of England. The act, popularly known as the Elizabethan Poor Law, the "43rd Elizabeth", or the "Old Poor Law", was passed in 1601 and created a poor law system for Engl ...

created a poor law in England where

Overseer of the poor An overseer of the poor was an official who administered poor relief such as money, food, and clothing in England and various other countries which derived their law from England, such as the United States. England In England, overseers of the po ...

would distribute money. In 1619 she was identified by Christopher Fawcett as burdensome on St Saviour's parish. She was a vagrant and the parishes wanted to avoid paying for anyone who was not a native of that parish. Cowper was given a detailed interview and biographies of her are largely based on those records. She was returned to St Olave's parish but they returned her until in July 1619 the two parishes decided to split the cost of keeping her as the case was too complex to resolve otherwise.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowper, Agnes 1550s births 1600s deaths Vagrancy People in knitting People from London