Cowper's School
At Cowper's School on Cotton Street, Sam found the teacher who would recognise his abilities and offer him a path towards a profession.
The Master
John Cowper was no ordinary schoolmaster. His reputation in Castle Douglas was such that when a new school building opened in 1874, it continued to be known simply as 'Cowper's School'—testimony to the man's standing in the community.
Years later, in a letter to his biographer Malcolm Harper, Crockett would write of him: 'What I owe him can never be repaid.' He described Cowper as 'a thoroughly capable, competent, an admirable classical scholar, good at mathematics, and of a high, unbending character, which was yet full of great kindliness.'
This was a teacher who combined rigorous standards with genuine care for his pupils.
The Apprenticeship
Cowper offered Sam something concrete: the position of pupil-teacher at his school. This was an apprenticeship system that allowed promising students to begin teaching while continuing their own education. It represented a clear path to respectability and steady income.
The pupil-teacher system was practical rather than romantic. Sam would have assisted with younger pupils, learning classroom management and pedagogical methods while still advancing his own studies. It was training for a specific profession: schoolmaster in a parish school.
For someone who loved reading and writing, teaching seemed a natural fit. It offered the best way to use his evident talents in a profession that was actually attainable.
A Lasting Bond
We may assume that Cowper was responsible for Crockett's studying for The Galloway Bursary in 1876. This was fictionalised in Chapter 37 of Kit Kennedy (1899). The relationship between teacher and pupil extended far beyond Sam's years at Cowper's School. The loyalty was mutual and lasting. In the 1880s, when Cowper faced difficulties with the Parish board, Sam wrote an anonymous letter in his support.
Cowper's family maintained connections too. One of his daughters somehow acquired a notebook of Sam's from 1882, when he was a student at Edinburgh University. This notebook was donated to the Galloway Raiders archive in 2023, a tangible link between teacher and pupil surviving across the generations.
Fictionalised Tribute
Decades later, Crockett would fictionalise Cowper as John Causland in his posthumously published novel Rogue's Island (1917). The fictional portrait suggests the depth of influence this Castle Douglas schoolmaster had on his pupil's imagination and career.
But by then, Sam Crocket had become Samuel Rutherford Crockett, and the pupil-teacher's apprenticeship had led somewhere neither teacher nor pupil could have predicted in those Cotton Street classrooms.
Image: Illustration of Cowper's School, Castle Douglas by John Copland in Crockett and Grey Galloway by Malcolm McLachlan Harper (1907)