COCKBURN (ko'burn), SIR ALEXANDER JAMES EDMUND, LOTH BART. (1802-188o), lord chief justice of Eng land, born Dec. 24, 1802, of ancient Scottish stock, the son of Alexander, fourth son of Sir James Cockburn, 6th baronet. His father was British envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotenti ary to the state of Colombia, and married Yolande, daughter of the vicomte de Vignier. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cam bridge, of which he was elected a fellow and afterwards an honor ary fellow. He entered at the Middle Temple in 1825 and was called to the bar in 1829. He joined the western circuit, and for some time such practice as he was able to obtain lay at the Devon sessions. In 1832, however, the petitions following the first general election after the Reform Bill gave him an opening. The decisions of the committees bad not been reported since 1821, and with M. C. Rowe, another member of the western circuit, Cockburn undertook a new series of reports. In 1833 he had his first parliamentary brief.
In 1847 he decided to stand for parliament and was elected, without a contest, Liberal M.P. 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 185o and attor ney-general in 1851, a post which he held till the resignation of the ministry in Feb. 1852. During the short administration of Lord Derby, which followed, Sir Frederic Thesiger was attorney general and Cockburn was engaged against him in the case of R. v. Newman, on the prosecution of Achilli, a criminal infor mation for libel against Cardinal Newman. The jury who tried the case under Lord Campbell found the defence of justification not proved except in one particular. The verdict was set aside and a new trial ordered, but none ever took place. In Dec. 1852, under Lord Aberdeen's ministry, Cockburn became again attorney general, and so remained until 1856, taking part in many cele brated trials, notably leading for the Crown in the trial of Wil liam Palmer, of Rugeley in Staffordshire, for poisoning. 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 chancellor, and Cockburn became chief justice of the Queen's Bench, continuing as a judge for 24 years and dying in harness. On Saturday, Nov. 20, 188o, he presided over a court for the consideration of Crown cases reserved; he walked home, and on that night he died of angina pectoris at his house in Hertford Street.
Sir Alexander Cockburn earned and deserved a high reputation as a judge. He was a man of brilliant cleverness and rapid in tuition. He had been a great advocate at the bar, fluent and persuasive rather than learned; before he died he was considered a good lawyer, some assigning unquestioned improvement in this respect to his frequent association on the bench with Blackburn. He had notoriously little sympathy with the Judicature Acts. Many were of opinion that he was inclined to make up his mind prematurely on the cases before him. But he was beyond doubt always in intention, and generally in fact, scrupulously fair. It was thought that he went out of his way to arrange to try causes celebres himself. His successor, Lord Coleridge, writing in 1881 to Lord Bramwell, to make the offer that he should try the mur derer Lefroy as a last judicial act before retiring, added, "Poor dear Cockburn would hardly have given you such a chance." But Cockburn tried all cases which came before him, whether great or small, with the same thoroughness, courtesy, and dignity, while he certainly gave great attention to the elaboration of his judgments and charges to juries. His summing up at the Tich borne trial at Bar lasted 18 days.
The greatest public occasion on which Sir Alexander Cockburn acted, outside his usual judicial functions, was that of the "Ala bama" arbitration, held at Geneva in 1872, in which he repre sented the British Government and dissented from the view taken by the majority of the arbitrators, without being able to con vince them. He prepared, with C. F. Adams, the representative of the United States, the English translation of the award of the arbitrators and published his reasons for dissenting in a vigor ously worded document which did not meet with universal com mendation. He admitted in substance the liability of England for the acts of the "Alabama," but not on the grounds on which the decision of the majority was based, and he held England not liable in respect of the "Florida" and the "Shenandoah." In personal appearance Sir Alexander Cockburn was of small stature, but great dignity of deportment. He was fond of yacht ing and sport, and at the time of his death was engaged in writ ing a series of articles on the "History of the Chase in the 19th Century." He had a high sense of the duties of his pro fession, and his utterance upon the limitations of advocacy, in his speech at the banquet given in the Middle Temple Hall to M. Berryer, the celebrated French advocate, may be called the classical authority on the subject. Lord Brougham had spoken of "the first great duty of an advocate to reckon everything sub ordinate to the interests of his client." But the lord chief jus tice, replying to the toast of "the judges of England," said amid loud cheers from a distinguished assembly of lawyers, "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 ne f as. He ought to know how to reconcile the inter ests of his clients with the eternal interests of truth and justice" (The Times, Nov. 9, 1864). Sir Alexander Cockburn was never married, and the baronetcy became extinct at his death.