26th April 1854 saw the death of Henry Thomas Cockburn of Bonaly.
Lord Cockburn, as he is commonly known campaigned to protect and improve the beauty of Edinburgh. He was educated in Edinburgh and entered the Faculty of Advocates in 1800. He became Lord Advocate Depute in 1806 and took his seat on the Scottish Bench as Lord Cockburn in 1834.
Cockburn was a member of the Speculative Society to which Sir Walter Scott, Francis Jeffrey and Henry Brougham belonged. Now many of you will recognise the first name but the second two might not be known, I wont go into their history but will merely point out the street names, Brougham Street and Jeffrey Street and they may become more clear. The man himself has of course his name remembered in a lovely street leading from The Royal Mile to Market Street, still full of independent shops and bars in a style I am sure he would be proud of.
As might be expected from a product of Edinburgh’s Age of Enlightenment, Lord Cockburn had a strong sense of what was right and good for the city: to keep distinctive features and traditions and to ensure that continuing development is consistent with these.
His legacy is The Cockburn Association, one of the world’s oldest architectural conservation and urban planning monitoring organisations, founded in 1875 and still keeping planners in check to this day, they even have their own Facebook page and are currently campaigning to save the Royal High School amongst other planning issues around Edinburgh.
