Monarch Victoria Name Sir Cockburn, Monarch Victoria Role Politician | Preceded by The Lord Campbell Nationality British Party Liberal Party | |
 | ||
Preceded by None
Chief Justice, Queen's Bench Born 24 December 1802
Alcina, Transylvania
Kingdom of Hungary ( 1802-12-24 ) Spouse(s) Louisa Ann Elizabeth Dalley Godfrey (not married) Died November 28, 1880, Mayfair, London, United Kingdom Succeeded by John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge Resting place Kensal Green Cemetery, London Borough of Brent | ||
Education Trinity Hall, Cambridge | ||
Sir Alexander James Edmund Cockburn, 12th Baronet (24 September 1802 – 28 November 1880) was a Scottish jurist and politician who served as the Lord Chief Justice for 21 years. A notorious womaniser and socialite, he heard some of the leading causes célèbres of the nineteenth century.
Contents
- Life
- Advocate 18321847
- As law officer of the Crown 18501856
- As judge 18561880
- Personality
- Family
- References
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.
Life
Cockburn was born in Alţâna, in what is now Romania and was then part of Habsburg Monarchy, to Alexander Cockburn and his wife Yolande, daughter of the Vicomte de Vignier. His father served as British envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Württemberg and the Colombia District (now Colombia) and was the fourth son of Sir James Cockburn, 8th Baronet (born c.1729, died July 1804), his three older uncles having died without heirs.
He was initially educated largely abroad and became fluent in French and familiar with German, Italian and Spanish. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, gaining a first in Civil law in 1824–5 and graduating in 1829 with an LL.B. degree, and also being elected a fellow, and afterwards an honorary fellow. He entered 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, not even keeping his Chambers open.
Three years after his call, the Reform Bill was passed. Cockburn started to practise 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 enquire 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.
In December 1852, under Lord Aberdeen's ministry, Cockburn again became Attorney General, and remained so until 1856, taking part in many celebrated trials.
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".
In 1875, the post of Chief Justice was replaced by Lord Chief Justice, a position he held until his death on 28 November 1880. He died of angina pectoris at his house in 40 Hertford Street, Mayfair, London; he had continued working up until his death despite three heart attacks and warnings from his doctor. As he never married, he produced no legitimate heirs despite having a surviving child. As a result, the baronetcy became dormant upon his death. His remains were deposited in Catacomb A of Kensal Green Cemetery.
Advocate (1832–1847)
As law officer of the Crown (1850–1856)
Lord John Russell appointed Cockburn as Solicitor-General in 1850, and as Attorney General in 1851, which latter post he held until the resignation of the ministry in February 1852. In December 1852, under Lord Aberdeen's ministry, Cockburn again became Attorney General, and remained so until 1856, taking part in many celebrated trials.
Cockburn shepherded through Parliament the Common Law Procedure Act 1852 and the Common Law Procedure Act 1854.
As judge (1856–1880)
Cockburn always sought out the most sensational cases and was astute in rearranging his diary so that he could sit in any trial likely to attract the attention of the press.
Personality
In personal appearance Cockburn was of small stature with a large head, 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, to evade bailiffs. Shortly before he became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Cockburn was walking in London's Haymarket with fellow barrister William Ballantine when he saw a police constable roughly handling a woman. The pair stopped to protest but found themselves accused of obstructing a constable in the execution of his duty, arrested by the constable and conveyed to Vine Street Police Station. At the station they met an acquaintance who explained to the inspector who they were and they were released.
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:
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.
As a judge he did not have the highest reputation, with a joke within the legal profession being that he became a first rate judge only because he sat with Lord Blackburn. Charles Francis Adams, Sr., a fellow judge on the Geneva tribunal to resolve the Alabama claims issue, felt that Sir Alexander's temper was so short that he seemed mentally unbalanced.
Family
Although Cockburn never married, he had at least one daughter and probably a son, by the unmarried Elizabeth Ann Louisa Dalley Godfrey (baptised 26 April 1818 Old Church St Pancras), the daughter of William Daniel Leake Godfrey (1788–1868) and his wife Louisa Hannah (née Dalley, 1791–1852):
- Louisa C. Cockburn (Stratford, Essex 1839 – Isle of Wight 25 April 1869), who married at Chelsea, London, on 25 June 1863 to Charles William Cavendish (Chiswick 24 September 1822 – Isle of Wight 21 December 1890), a grandson of George Cavendish, 1st Earl of Burlington, with issue
Louis Francis John Charles Raphael Cavendish (24 October 1864 – 31 December 1890), who never married - Alexander Dalton (Alex) Cockburn (Sydenham 1846 – Westminster 16 July 1887 ) who never married and to whom Cockburn left the majority of his fortune. His son did not succeed him as Baronet of Langton which became dormant.