Cockburn, Henry ___ 1779-1854 ___ British ___ lawyer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Cockburn was born in Edinburgh into a well-connected Tory family, and educated at Royal High School and Edinburgh University. He joined the Speculative Society, which counted Walter Scott among its members, trained as a lawyer, and became a Whig. When Earl Grey became Prime Minister in 1830, Cockburn was appointed solicitor-general for Scotland. As such, he was responsible for preparing the Scottish Reform Act. In 1834 he became a judge in the Court of Session and adopted the title of Lord Cockburn. Late in his life, he published a biography of Lord Jeffrey.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1831-1854 ___ political religious social law

WEB TEXT LINKS
couple of extracts
and a couple more
googlebooks

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
National Library of Scotland, Manuscript Collections

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Memorials of His Time
Journal of Henry Cockburn
Circuit Journeys
 

May 2005
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.