COCKER, Edward, the reputed author of the famous Arithmetick, the popularity of which has added a phrase to the list of English proverbialisms, was born about 1632, and died between 1671 and 1675. He was an engraver, and also taught writing and arithmetic. He is credited with the authorship and execution of some fourteen sets of copy slips, one of which, Daniel's Copy-Book, ingraven by Edward Cocker, Philomath, is preserved in the British Museum. Pepys, in his Diary, makes very favourable mention of Cocker, who appears to have displayed great skill in his art. Cocker's Arithmetick, the fifty-second edition of which appeared in 1748, and which has passed through some sixty editions in all, was not published during the lifetime of its reputed author, the first impression bearing date of 1678. The late Professor De Morgan in his Arithmetical Books (1847) adduces proofs, which may be held to be conclusive, that the work was a forgery of the editor and publisher, John Hawkins; and there appears to be no doubt that the Decimal Arithmetic (1684), and the English Dictionary (second edition, 1715), issued by Hawkins under Cocker’s name, are forgeries also. De Morgan condemns the Arithmetick as a diffuse compilation from older and better works, and dates “a very great deterioration in elementary works on arithmetic” from the appearance of the book, which owed its celebrity far more to persistent puffing than to its merits. He pertinently adds,—“This same Edward Cocker must have had great reputation, since a bad book under his name pushed out the good ones.”

COCKERELL, CharlesRobert (1788-1863), architect, was born in London. After a severe preliminary training in his profession, he visited and studied the great architectural remains of Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor. At Aegina, Phigalia, and other places of interest, he conducted excavations on a large scale, enriching the British Museum with many fine fragments, and adding several valuable monographs to the . literature of archaeology, the best of which is said to be that on the mausoleum of Halicarnassus. Elected in 1829 an associate of the Royal Academy, he became a member in 1836, and in 1839 he was appointed professor of architecture, his lectures in which capacity were so greatly esteemed as to be attended by all the students of the several arts professed within the school. On the death in 1837 of Soane, the distinguished architect of the Bank of England, Cockerell was appointed Lis successor, and successfully carried out the alterations that have been needed in that building. In addition to branch banks at Liverpool and Manchester he erected in 1840 the New Library at Cambridge, and in 1845 the university galleries at Oxford, the last one of the architect’s least happy efforts, as well as the Sun and the Westminster Fire Offices in Bartholomew Lane and in the Strand; and Tite and he were joint architects of the London and Westminster Bank. On the death of Henry Lonsdale Elmes in 1847, Cockerell was selected to finish the St George’s Hall, Liverpool, a task which he executed with great success. Cockerell’s best conceptions were those inspired by classic models; his essays in the Gothic—the college at Lampeter, for instance, and the chapel at Harrow—are by no means so successful. Among his numerous publications, however, may be mentioned those On the ...

COCKERMOUTH, a parliamentary borough and markettown of England, in the county of Cumberland, 25 miles by rail from Carlisle, at the confluence of the Derwent and the Cocker, both of which are crossed by bridges in the immediate vicinity. The town is irregularly built, but is clean and well paved. It has remains of an old castle, built soon after the Conquest, a town-hall, a free grammar school, and a house of correction; and its manufactures include linen and woollen goods, thread, hosiery, hats, and paper. In the neighbourhood are extensive coal mines, which give employment to nearly 2000 workmen. In 1871 the township had a population of 5115; the borough (which returns one member to parliament), with an area of 8467 acres, had 6936. Of the early occupation of the site of Cockermouth conclusive evidence is afforded by the relics discovered from time to time; directly north of the town is a tumulus called Toot’s Hill; and at Pap Castle, about half a mile to the north-west, are the remains of a Roman camp. The barony or honour of Cockermouth was held shortly after the Conquest by Waltheof, lord of Allerdale, and has since passed through a long series of possessors, including the Uinfra villes, Multens, Lucies, Percies, and Nevilles, down to the present Lord Leconfield. The town was captured in 1387 by the Scotch under Douglas; and in 1648 the castle, garrisoned for king Charles, was taken and dismantled by the Parliamentarians. Wordsworth the poet was born at Cockermouth in 1770; and Tickell, the friend of Addison, at the village of Bridekirk, about two miles to the north.