Progressive up to a point

Henry Cockburn (1779-1854) was a Scots advocate, Solicitor-General in the reforming Whig government of 1832-41, later a judge, contributor to the Edinburgh Review and author of delightful, posthumously published memoirs and journals. A considerable figure in the Edinburgh of his time, he is commemorated in the Cockburn Association, one of the earliest conservation societies, founded in 1875. He has been the subject of an admirable biography by Karl Miller, while his impersonation by the actor Russell Hunter in a one-man play, Cocky, revived interest in him 30 years ago. But I suppose he is little known in England, though a few will know of him as the great-great-grandfather of both Evelyn Waugh and the Marxist journalist Claud Cockburn. He also successfully defended Helen McDougall, the associate of the body-snatchers and murderers Burke and Hare. Something of his flavour is caught in the observation, ‘Except that he murdered, Burke was a gentlemanly fellow.’

As a Whig and Edinburgh reviewer Cockburn was a progressive. Yet he was also a lover of the past, rapidly vanishing — the 18th century, he thought, ‘was the last purely Scotch age’, and he was no friend of democracy. As he wrote in 1851:

I am all for all that extension of the franchise that does not imply lowering it. It is low enough. Experience has proved that the largest constituencies like the worst members — that is, members likest themselves. Bringing in more of these electors is bad for the peace of the country, and hurtful to the characters of members; who instead of forming a Wittenagemott, or an assembly of wise men, become the mere delegates or attorneys, not merely of the interests and opinions of their masters, but of their follies and passions.