OBITUARY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2106, 23 November 1880, Page 3

OBITUARY.

Oar cable message this morning informs us of the death of Sir Alexander Cookburn, Chief Justice of England, and' Sir Charles Yorke, Constable of the Tower of London. Tho following sketches of their career are taken from the " Men of the Time":—

Cookburn, The Bight Hon. Sir Alexander James Edmund, Bart., born in 1802, son of Mr Alexander Cookburn, formerly English Minister in Columbia; succeeded, in 1858, to the baronetcy of his unole, the late Bev. Sir William Cockburn, Bart., Dean of York. Having been educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated LL.B. in 1829, Mr Cockburn was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple, and went the Western circuit. In 1841 he beoame Q.C., during the railway mania of 1846 he had the good fortune to obtain a large share of the Parliamentary practice which arose out of the various lines projected, and at the general election of 1847 ho was returned for Southampton in the advanced Liberal interest. Ho did not take a very prominent position as a debater until he made his memorable defence of Lord Palmerston's foreign policy, on the Facifico question, in 1850, which was one of the most eloquent and successful speeches ever delivered in ths House of Commons. Ho was soon afterwards appointed Solicitor-General, was promoted to be Attorney-General in March, 1851, and oontinued to hold the latter offico till the dissolution of Lord John Bussell's Ministry in the spring of 1852. On the formation of the Coalition Cabinet, he resumed his post as Attorney-General, and was, in 1854, appointed Recorder of Bristol. Whilst Attorney-General he waß engaged in tho "Hopwood case," and displayed consummate ability in the prosecution of W. Palmer. On the death of Chief- Justice Jorvis, at the close of 1856, Sir Alexander Cockburn was creatod Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and was advanced to the high office of Lord Chief Justice of England on the elevation of the late Lord Campbell to the woolsack in 1859. His charge to the Grand Jury at the Central Criminal Court, London, delivered April 10th, 1867, in the oause of General Nelson and Lieutenant Brand, prosecuted by the Jamaica Defence Committee, is a masterly performance, and contains a most elaborate exposition of martial law and of the manner in which has been applied in various periods of our history. In September, 1871, he was appointed to be the arbitrator on the part of Great Britain under the sti- | pulations of the Washington Treaty relating to the settlement of the Alabama claims. He presided over the protracted trial of " The Queen v Castro" in the Court of Queen's Benoh in 1873-4. His charge to the jury in that remarkable case was printed, under his own editorial supervision, in 2 vols.. 1875. He was cbairman of the .Cambridge University Commission, 1877-78. Yorke, Sir Charles, G.C.8., son of the late Col. Yorke, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, born in Deo., 1790, and educated at Winchester, entered the army at an early age, served with the 52nd Begiment in the Peninsular war, and was present at Vimiera, Fuentes d'Onor, Salamanca, Yittoria, the Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, and Orthez, at the sieges of Ciudad and Badajoz,and at the battle of Waterloo. He served at the Cape of Good Hope in the last Kaffir war in 1852-3, has received the war medal with ten clasps, and is a General in the army. Having been appointed to the Colonelcy of the 33rd Foot, he was transferred in 1863 to be ColonelCommandant of the Bifle Brigade, and aoted as Military Seoretary at i'tho Horse Guards from 1854 till 1860. He was created a K.C.B. in 1856, and promoted G.C.B. in 1861. He was appointed Constable of the Tower, in succession to thejlate Sir William Gomm, in June, 1877. He attained the rank of Field* Marshal in the army in June, 1877.