Online Encyclopedia

HENRY THOMAS COCKBURN (1779–1854)

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 625 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HENRY THOMAS COCKBURN (1779–1854)  , Scottish judge, with the style of Lord Cockburn, was born in
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Edinburgh on the 26th of
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October 1779 . His
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father, a keen Tory, was a baron of the Scottish court of
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exchequer, and his
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mother was connected by
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marriage with Lord Melville . He was educated at the high school and the university of Edinburgh; and he was a member of the famous Speculative Society, to which
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Sir Walter Scott, Brougham and Jeffrey belonged . He entered the faculty of advocates in 1800, and attached himself, not to the party of his relatives, who could have afforded him most valuable
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patron-age, but to the Whig or Liberal party, and that at a time when it held out few inducements to men ambitious of success in
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life . On the accession of
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Earl Grey's
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ministry in 183o he became
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solicitor-general for Scotland . 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's forensic style was remarkable for its clearness, pathos and simplicity; and his conversational powers were unrivalled among his contemporaries . The extent of his
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literary ability only became known after he had passed his seventieth
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year, on the publication of his biography of Lord Jeffrey in 1852, and from the Memorials of his Time, which appeared posthumously in 1856 . He died on the 26th of
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April 1854, at his mansion of Bonaly, near Edinburgh .

End of Article: HENRY THOMAS COCKBURN (1779–1854)
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COCKBURN, ALICIA, or ALISON (1713-1994)
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