Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet

 

Sir Alexander James Edmund Cockburn, 12th Baronet
Born	December 24 1802(1802--)  Romania - Alţâna
Died	November 20 1880 (aged 77)  England - Hertford Street, Mayfair, London Angina pectoris
Residence	Hertford Street, Mayfair, London
Occupation	Lord Chief Justice
Partner	Louisa Ann Elizabeth Dalley Godfrey
Children	Louisa C. Cockburn Alexander E. Cockburn
Parents	Alexander Cockburn and Yolande de Vignier

Sir Alexander James Edmund Cockburn, 12th Baronet (1802-12-24 – 1880-11-20) was an English lawyer, politician and judge. A notorious womaniser and socialite, as Lord Chief Justice he heard some of the leading causes célèbres of the nineteenth century.

Life

Cockburn was born in Alţâna, Romania ^{[1] [2]} to Alexander Cockburn (1776–1852) and Yolande de Vignier, daughter of the Vicomte de Vignier. ^[3][4]. His father served as British envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Württemberg and the Columbia District^[clarify] and was the fourth son of Sir James Cockburn, 8th Baronet (b c1729, d July 1804), his three older uncles having died without heirs.

He was initially educated largely abroad and acquired fluency in French and familiarity with German, Italian and Spanish. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, graduating in 1829 and being elected a fellow, and afterwards an honorary fellow. He entered at the Middle Temple in 1825, and was called to the bar in 1829. He joined the western circuit and built up a substantial practice though he was sufficiently diffident about his success in London to devote little of his energies there.^[4]

Three years after his call, the Reform Bill was passed, Cockburn started to practice in election law, including acting for Henry Lytton Bulwer and Edward Ellice. In 1833, with William Rowe, he published a parliamentary brief on the decisions of election committees. In 1834, Ellice recommended Cockburn as member of the commission to inquire into the state of the corporations of England and Wales. Through his parliamentary work Cockburn met Joseph Parkes and himself became interested in politics as a profession in itself, not simply as a pretext for legal argument. Cockburn had become ambitious and in 1838 he turned down the offer of a judicial appointment in India with the sentiment "I am going in for something better than that". He became Recorder of Southampton and from that point started to reduce his election and parliamentary work in favour of more publicly notorious cases. In 1841 he was made a Q.C..^[4]

In 1847 he decided to stand for parliament, and was elected unopposed as Liberal Member of Parliament for Southampton. His speech in the House of Commons on behalf of the government in the Don Pacifico dispute with Greece commended him to Lord John Russell, who appointed him Solicitor-General in 1850 and Attorney General in 1851, a post which he held till the resignation of the ministry in February 1852.^[3]

In December 1852, under Lord Aberdeen's ministry, Cockburn again became Attorney General, and remained so until 1856, taking part in many celebrated trials.^[3]

In 1854 Cockburn was made Recorder of Bristol. In 1856, he became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He inherited the baronetcy in 1858. In 1859, Lord Campbell became Lord Chancellor, and Cockburn became Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench.

Several Prime Ministers offered to nominate Cockburn for a peerage, and he finally accepted the offer in 1864. However, Queen Victoria refused, noting that "this peerage has been more than once previously refused upon the ground of the notoriously bad moral character of the Chief Justice".^[5]

In 1875, the post of Chief Justice was replaced by Lord Chief Justice, a position he held until his death ^[3] on November 20 1880. He died of angina pectoris at his house in Hertford Street, London. As he never married, he produced no legitimate heirs despite having a surviving child. As a result, the baronetcy became dormant upon his death.^[3]

Trials

As advocate

• Trial of Dr Cockburn: In 1841 a charge of simony, brought against his uncle, William, Dean of York, enabled Cockburn to appear conspicuously in a case which attracted considerable public attention, the proceedings taking the form of a motion for prohibition duly obtained against the ecclesiastical court, which had deprived Dr Cockburn of his office.^[3]

• Daniel McNaghten: Sir Robert Peel's secretary, Edward Drummond, was shot by Daniel McNaghten in 1843. Cockburn, briefed on behalf of the assassin, made a speech which helped to establish the insanity defence in Britain for the next century.^[4] At the trial, Cockburn had made extensive and effective use of Isaac Ray's Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity. Cockburn quoted extensively from the book which rejected traditional views of the insanity defence based on the defendant's ability to distinguish "right from wrong" in favour of a broader approach based on causation.^[6][7] Cockburn displayed a mastery of the scientific evidence and was an innovator in exploiting forensic science in court.^[8]

• The winner of the 1844 Derby: In 1844, he appeared in Wood v. Peel to determine the winner of a bet (the Gaming Act 1845 deemed bets unenforceable in law) as to whether the Derby winner Running Rein was a four-year-old or a three-year-old. Running Rein could not be produced, and as a result Cockburn lost the case, while his strenuous advocacy of his client's cause had led him into making, in his opening speech, strictures on Lord George Bentinck's conduct in the case which should have been held back.^{[citation needed]}

• The Acilli trial: During the short administration of Lord Derby, Cockburn was engaged against Sir Frederic Thesiger Attorney General at the time, and for John Henry Newman, in the case of a friar named Giacinto Achilli who had accused Newman of libel. The jury who heard the case under Lord Campbell found that Newman's plea of justification was not proved except in one particular, a verdict which, together with the methods of the judge and the conduct of the audience, attracted considerable comment.^[3]

• William Palmer: In his tenure as Attorney General from 1852 to 1856, he led for the crown in the trial of William Palmer of Rugeley in Staffordshire, an ex-medical man who poisoned a friend named Cook with strychnine in order to steal from his estate. Cockburn made an exhaustive study of the medical aspects of the case and won a conviction after a twelve-day trial, again demonstrating his skill with forensic science.^[3]

• The Hopwood will case (1855).^[3]

• The Swinfen will case (1856)^[3]

As judge

• Martin v. Mackonachie: Cockburn sitting in the Queen's Bench division granted a writ to quash Lord Penzance's suspension of Alexander Heriot Mackonochie from his clerical office for breach of the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874. Cockburn's decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal.^[9]

• The Tichborne Case: He presided in this famous trial which lasted 188 days, of which his summing-up occupied eighteen.^[3]

• R v. Hicklin: He developed the Hicklin test for obscenity.^[10]

• The Alabama claims: He also played a role in the arbitration of the Alabama claims at Geneva in 1872, in which he represented the British government. He dissented from the majority view as to British liability for the actions of British-built privateer ships. He prepared the English translation of the arbitrators' award and published a controversial dissenting opinion in which he admitted British liability for the actions of the CSS Alabama, though not on the grounds given in the award, and discounted liability for the CSS Florida and CSS Shenandoah.^[3]

Personality

In personal appearance Cockburn was of small stature, but possessed a very dignified manner. He enjoyed yachting and other sport, and writing. Something of an adventurer in his youth, he was fond of socialising and womanising, fathering two illegitimate children. He "was also throughout his life addicted to frivolities not altogether consistent with advancement in a learned profession, or with the positions of dignity which he successively occupied." In his later years, he reminisced "Whatever happens, I have had my whack". He once had to escape through the window of the robing room at Rougemont Castle, Exeter, Devon to evade bailiffs.^[3][4]

However, he was a passionate champion of the proper role of the advocate and on the occasion of a reception for Antoine Pierre Berryer in Middle Temple Hall, said:^[3]

The arms which an advocate wields he ought to use as a warrior, not as an assassin. He ought to uphold the interests of his clients per fas, not per nefas. He ought to know how to reconcile the interests of his clients with the eternal interests of truth and justice.

– The Times, 9 November 1864

Family

Although Cockburn never married, he had at least one daughter and probably a son, by the unmarried

Louisa Ann Elizabeth Dalley Godfrey (b. 15 February 1814) (the daughter of William Daniel Leake Godfrey 1788-1868 and Louisa Hannah née Dalley b.1791) ^{[4] [11]} :

• Louisa C. Cockburn (Stratford, Essex 1839-Isle of Wight 1869-04-25 ^{[2] [12] [13]}), who married at Chelsea, London on 25 June 1863 ^[14] to Charles William Cavendish (Chiswick 1822-09-24 - Isle of Wight 1890-12-21)^[15], with issue:
  • Louis Francis John Charles Raphael Cavendish (1864-10-24 ^[16]-1890-12-31 ^[17]), who never married ^{[citation needed]}
• Alexander E. (Alex) Cockburn (Sydenham 1846-Westminster 1887 ^[2] ) who never married ^{[citation needed]} and to whom Cockburn left the majority of his fortune.^[4]

References

Bibliography

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• This page incorporates information from Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page.

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• Obituaries:
  • The Times, 22 Nov 1880; 26 Nov 1880
  • Law Times, 27 Nov 1880, 68–9
  • Solicitors' Journal, 25 (1880–81), 76–7

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• Bucknill, J. C. (1881). "The Late Lord Chief Justice of England on Lunacy". Brain 4: 1-26. 
• Diamond, B. L. (1956). "Isaac Ray and the trial of Daniel M'Naghten". American Journal of Psychiatry 112(8): 651-656. 
• Lobban, M. (2004) "Cockburn, Sir Alexander James Edmund, twelfth baronet (1802–1880)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, accessed 24 July 2007 (subscription or UK/ Ireland public library membership required)
• Russell, C. (1894). "Reminiscences of Lord Chief Justice Coleridge". North American Review: September. 
• Veeder, Van Vechten (1900). "Sir Alexander Cockburn". Harvard Law Review 14(2): 79-97. 

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Parliament of the United Kingdom (1801–present)
Preceded by Humphrey Mildmay	Member of Parliament for Southampton (one of two) 1847–1857	Succeeded by Thomas Weguelin
Legal offices
Preceded by Sir John Romilly	Solicitor General 1850–1851	Succeeded by Sir William Page Wood
Preceded by Sir John Romilly	Attorney General 1851–1852	Succeeded by Sir Frederic Thesiger
Preceded by Sir Frederic Thesiger	Attorney General 1852–1856	Succeeded by Sir Richard Bethell
Preceded by Sir John Jervis	Chief Justice of the Common Pleas 1856–1859	Succeeded by Sir William Erle
Preceded by The Lord Campbell	Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench 1859–1875	Succeeded by (Position abolished)
Preceded by (New position)	Lord Chief Justice of England 1875–1880	Succeeded by The Lord Coleridge
Baronetage of Nova Scotia
Preceded by William Cockburn	Baronet of Langton 1858–1880	Succeeded by Dormant

Persondata
NAME	Cockburn, Alexander Edmund James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Lord Chief Justice
DATE OF BIRTH	1802-12-24
PLACE OF BIRTH	Alţâna
DATE OF DEATH	1880-11-20
PLACE OF DEATH	Hertford Street, Mayfair, London

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