William Cowper was born at Davington in Kent on 21 March 1865, the son of Joseph Meadows Cowper. He was educated at King\u2019s School, Canterbury, and at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he took first-class honours in both parts of the Classical Tripos. In 1888 he turned to teaching \u2014 Queen\u2019s College, Taunton; Tonbridge; Liverpool College. An interview with the Rev. William Simms brought him to Jamaica on 6 February 1891 as second master of the Jamaica High School, later Jamaica College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1895 he married Blanche Elliott Evelyn of Linstead. Their four children were all educated at Wolmer\u2019s. The trustees appointed him headmaster of Wolmer\u2019s in 1901, six years after the free school had been remodelled as a secondary school. William Seivright, writing in 1929, gives the roll as 79 at appointment and 150 in 1902 after amalgamation with the Church of England Grammar School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is the man the 1929 souvenir \u2014 and Cowper himself, speaking at the bicentenary \u2014 credits with the motto Age Quod Agis<\/em>. He convened the meeting that founded the Wolmer\u2019s Old Boys\u2019 Association on 4 May 1905.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He left Wolmer\u2019s in 1915. The Gleaner<\/em> of 24 October 1939, reporting his funeral from St Dunstan\u2019s Chapel at Jamaica College, states that he was head of Jamaica College from 1915 until April 1933. His daughter Mary was then still headmistress of Wolmer\u2019s Girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n