early education had equipped him. He was
educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, of which he was 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 for some time such practice as he was able to obtain lay at the
Devon sessions, quarter sessions at that time affording an opening and a
school of advocacy to young counsel not to be found anywhere fifty years
later. In London he had so little to do that only the persuasion of
friends induced him to keep his London chambers open. Three years after
his call to the bar, however, the Reform Bill was passed, and the
petitions which followed the ensuing general election gave rise to a
large number of new questions for the decision of election committees,
and afforded an opening of which he promptly availed himself. The
decisions of the committees had not been reported since 1821, and with
M. C. Rowe, another member of the western circuit, Cockburn undertook a
new series of reports. They only published one volume, but the work was
well done, and in 1833 Cockburn had his first parliamentary brief.

In 1834 Cockburn was well enough thought of to be made a member of the
commission to inquire into the state of the corporations of England and
Wales. Other parliamentary work followed; but he had ambition to be more
than a parliamentary counsel, and attended diligently on his circuit,
besides appearing before committees. In 1841 he was made a Q.C., and in
that year a charge of simony, brought against his uncle, William, dean
of York, enabled him 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. Not long after this, Sir
Robert Peel's secretary, Edward Drummond, was shot by the crazy
Scotsman, Daniel M'Naughten, and Cockburn, briefed on behalf of the
assassin, not only made a very brilliant speech, which established the
defence of insanity, but also secured the full publicity of a long
report in the _Morning Chronicle_ of the 6th of March 1843. Another
well-known trial in which he appeared a year later was that of _Wood_ v.
_Peel_ (_The Times_, 2nd and 3rd of July 1844), the issue being in form
to determine the winner of a bet (the Gaming Act was passed in the
following year) as to the age of the Der