Henry Thomas Cockburn, Lord Cockburn ( /ˈkoʊbərn/ koh-bərn; 26 October 1779 – 26 April 1854) was a Scottish lawyer, judge and literary figure. He served as Solicitor General for Scotland between 1830 and 1834.
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Cockburn's father, a keen Tory, was a baron of the Court of Exchequer, and his mother was connected by marriage with the influential Lord Melville. He was educated at the Royal High School and the University of Edinburgh.
Cockburn contributed regularly to the Edinburgh Review. In this popular magazine of its day he is described as: "rather below the middle height, firm, wiry and muscular, inured to actitve exercise of all kinds, a good swimmer, an accomplished skater, an intense lover of the fresh breezes of heaven. He was the model of a high-bred Scotch gentleman. He spoke with a Doric breadth of accent. Cockburn was one of the most popular men north of the Tweed."[1] He was a member of the famous Speculative Society, to which Sir Walter Scott, Henry Brougham and Francis Jeffrey belonged.
The extent of Cockburn's literary ability only became known after he had passed his seventieth year, on the publication of his biography of lifelong friend Lord Jeffrey in 1852, and from his chief literary work, the Memorials of his Time, which appeared posthumously in 1856. His published work continued with his Journal, published in 1874. These constitute an autobiography of the writer interspersed with notices of manners, public events, and sketches of his contemporaries, of great interest and value.
Cockburn entered the Faculty of Advocates in 1800, and attached himself, not to the party of his relatives, who could have afforded him most valuable patronage, but to the Whig party, and that at a time when it held out few inducements to men ambitious of success in life. He became a distinguished advocate, and ultimately a judge. He was one of the leaders of the Whig party in Scotland in its days of darkness prior to the Reform Act of 1832, and was a close friend of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder.
On the accession of Earl Grey's ministry in 1830 he became Solicitor General for Scotland. During his time here he drafted the First Scottish Reform Bill.[1] In 1834 he was raised to the bench, and on taking his seat as a judge in the Court of Session he adopted the title of Lord Cockburn.
Cockburn married Elizabeth, daughter of James Macdowall, in 1811. They had six sons and four daughters.[2] He died on 26 April 1854, at his mansion of Bonaly, near Edinburgh. The journalist Claud Cockburn and the author Evelyn Waugh were both descended from Cockburn,[3] as is actress Olivia Wilde.
Cockburn had a strong interest in architectural conservation, particularly of Edinburgh. The Cockburn Association (Edinburgh Civic Trust), founded in 1875, is named after him. Cockburn Street is named after him, and the building at its foot (formerly the "Cockburn Hotel") bears his image in profile in a stone above the entrance. In Parliament Hall a statue of Cockburn stands in the north-east corner, by local sculptor William Brodie.
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John Hope |
Solicitor General for Scotland 1830–1834 |
Succeeded by Andrew Skene |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by The Marquess of Lansdowne |
Rector of the University of Glasgow 1831—1834 |
Succeeded by Lord Stanley |