Person
Cockle, James (1819 - 1895)
FRS FRAS
- Born
- 14 January 1819
Essex, England - Died
- 27 January 1895
Bayswater, England - Occupation
- Barrister, Chief justice and Mathematician
Summary
Sir James Cockle worked as a Barrister in England from 1846 to 1862, then as Queensland's Chief Justice from 1863 to 1879. His particular interests lay in calculus, algebra, metaphysics and astronomy, publishing around eighty scientific papers.
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Details
After completing school, James Cockle spent a year in the United States of America and in the West Indies. Upon his return to England in 1837, Cockle enrolled in law at Trinity College, Cambridge. He completed both a Bachelor and Master of Arts there and was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple in 1846. Cockle remained a part of the England legal circuit until 1863. During this time he maintained his interest in mathematics and astronomy and was elected fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1854.
In 1863 James Cockle was appointed Chief Justice of Queensland and during his fifteen years in that position consolidated many colonial statutes. Again this new position did not interfere with his study of mathematics and other related fields and Cockle published widely while in Australia. With fourteen years of service in Queensland's justice system, Cockle took one years leave (with full pay) in 1878 and returned to England with his family. Once the leave period was over he handed in his resignation and successfully fought for a retirement pension. Now fully retired from the bar, James Cockle put all his efforts into his mathematical research. His achievements in both law and mathematics were widely applauded and Cockle received many honours including election as a fellow of the Royal Society (1865), President of the London Mathematical Society (1884-1889) and was knighted in 1869.
Chronology
- 1842
- Education - Bachelor of Arts (BA), Trinity College, Cambridge, UK
- 1845
- Education - Master of Arts (MA), Trinity College, Cambridge, UK
- 1845 - 1849
- Career position - Special Pleader in England
- 1846 -
- Career position - Barrister at the Middle Temple in England
- 1848 - 1862
- Career position - Barrister of the Midland circuit in England
- 1854
- Career position - Fellow, Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS), UK
- 1856 -
- Career position - Member of the Cambridge Philosophical Society
- 1862
- Career position - Drafted the work Jurisdiction in Homicides Act in England
- 1863 - 1878
- Career position - President, Queensland Philosophical Society
- 1863 - 1879
- Career position - Chief Justice for Queensland
- 1865
- Career position - Fellow, The Royal Society, London (FRS)
- 1866 - 1867
- Career position - Senior Commissioner in Queensland
- 1869
- Award - Knighted
- c. 1870 -
- Career position - Corresponding member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society
- 1870 - 1885
- Career position - Member of the London Mathematical Society
- 1874 - 1877
- Career position - Chairman of Trustees of the Brisbane Grammar School
- 1876 -
- Career position - Honorary member, Royal Society of New South Wales
- 1878 -
- Life event - Returned to England
- 1879
- Career position - Resigned from the Queensland Bar
- 1886 - 1888
- Career position - President, London Mathematical Society
- 1888 - 1892
- Career position - Councillor of the Royal Astronomical Society, England
Published resources
Book Sections
- Corley, T. A. B.; and Crilly, A. J., 'Sir James Cockle, 1819-1895' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Details
- Marks, E. N., 'Cockle, Sir James (1819-1895)' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 3: 1851 - 1890 A-C, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1969), pp. 435-436. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A030407b.htm. Details
Resources
- Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q3068268. Details
- VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/56009040. Details
- 'Cockle, James (1819-1895)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1475700. Details
Resource Sections
- 'Cockle, James', in Physics in Australia to 1945, R.W. Home, with the assistance of Paula J. Needham, Australian Science Archives Project, June 1995, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/physics/P000092p.htm. Details
Annette Alafaci
Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 15 June 2022
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