https://www.howold.co/person/john-c...

His education is on my bucket list. The Cochrane family mainly went in for private tutors. The famous Lord Cochrane about whom quite a few books have been written (I have read a some of them) so we have his life fairly well doc'd had a French Tutor who he thought highly off. (later he earned a bucket load of medals fighting the French)

Whether John was privately tutored I do not know, have to assume yes. Though I did search for John McDougall or Cochrane in schools from that period. (no joy - but all schools were very helpful and searched what records they had.)

The school which was a good bet as it was very near a Cochrane Edinburgh address and the time scale matched perfectly was pulled down to make way for an extension of the Edinburgh University, all records are lost. (every path leads to either a brick wall, though in this case a demolished brick wall. But I'm determined to climb over it.)

During his time at the Inner Temple he wrote his treatise on chess, dedicated to Lewis and giving his address as the Inner Temple 1822.

The Inns of Court continued but became less effective, and admission to the bar still did not require any significant educational activity or examination. Therefore in 1846 the Parliament examined the education and training of prospective barristers and found the system to be inferior to the legal education provided in the United States. Therefore, formal schools of law were called for, but not finally established until later in the century, and even then the bar did not consider a university degree in admission decisions.>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bache....

Next week Leith and Newhaven [and Dubai]. If nothing then Culross (again!)>

Inspired by <Miss Sally>'s peregrinations, I've been to visit Cochrane's last known addresses:

<The age of John Cochrane the chessplayer was given as 72 in the 1871 census (National Archives, RG 10/165, folio 48), his place of birth being entered as Edinburgh. At that time, he was living as a lodger in a boarding house at 32 Seymour Street, Marylebone, described as “Barrister in Practice”. In the same house were two women by the name of Emily Cochrane; their ages were given as “60” and “30-40”.

[...]

His own will is referenced in the National Probate Calendar, which shows that he died on 2 March 1878 and that his personal estate was valued at under £200; the sole executrix was his niece, Emily Cochrane, a spinster, and the address of both was entered as 12 Bryanston Street, (which, incidentally, differs from the 6 Bryanston Street given for Cochrane’s death in the Inner Temple Admissions Database.)>

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter...

32 Seymour St. seems to be there much as he left it - maybe the doors and windows have been changed occasionally - and it's still split into flats, as the number of door bells attest. I took a nice picture. Next door, #28-30, is a small hotel once named after the late, great <Edward Lear>. There used to be a blue plaque to mark his residence at #30, but it was removed during a recent makeover. It's been upgraded to the <Zetter Townhouse>:

https://the-zetter-townhouse-maryle...

But still lives on as:

https://www.travelstay.com/pages/Ed...

#32 can be glimpsed in this shot: https://www.londonremembers.com/mem...

<COCHRANE - March 2, at No. 12 Bryanston-street, John Cochrane, Esq., late of Calcutta, aged 78.>

A similar notice (it specifies <in his seventy-eight year>) appears in the <Morning Post>, p.8, of the same date.

It's very possible he got that from the March 1882 BCM who gave John's age at the time of death as 86 ( 1878-86 =1792) but H.J.R. could not confirm it.

(Murray confirms as a source BCM 1881 and onwards.)

Westminster Papers have our John at 87 when passed away.

Reports indicate our John was always shy about his past. 'reticent ' is the word often used.

<BAKER & SONS Will sell by auction, at the Mart, Tokenhouse-yard, on Friday, June 21st, 1878, at 2, in two lots,

TWO HOUSES and SHOPS, No. 28, Edgware-road, and No. 60 (late 12), Bryanston-street, one door from Edgware-road, both let on repairing leases, and held for long unexpired terms. Particulars and conditions of sale may be had at the Mart; [...]>

My best bet will be the family letters between 1801 and 1805 (the time of the will.) He was left £1,000 some other family members got nothing.

One of the family must have griped. 'How come that ?? year old got £1,000. (and the '??' will give us the D.O.B.)

Or "Is he really John's son." and a reply might be most enlightening.

Last time I was there the clerk brought me a trolley load of boxes.

I admit now I was looking in the wrong places. I was spending most of time looking for his death details because we knew those and I knew what to look for but got carried away reading, basically, junk mail (though interesting junk mail.)

Next time I'll narrow my search to these dates.

I'm still a paid up member of whatever it is I am a member of that allows a trusted me to look at these things. I have a special I.D. card (somewhere) I cannot recall the exact title but it's valid and actually looks pretty cool. (more official looking than my bus pass.)

It's possible, of course, I've got things back to front - that the renumbering occurred before his death. In which case, he did die at #12, but the property had earlier been a higher number.

According to Wiki and his page seems well researched, he '...had accumulated a lot of leave and he spent 1841 to 1843 in the UK."

Could be as simple as that, a holiday.

Regarding my, Alan and Tony's interest in this matter I think the answer will be by sniffing about in the early 1800's and see if there was debate about the will.

In 1806 The Earl of Vincent wrote;

"The Cochranes are not to be trusted out of sight, they are all mad, romantic, money-getting and not truth-telling—and there is not a single exception in any part of the family."

Charming.

I have to admit I've plummeted to new depths of nerdiness. I have the famous Admiral Cochrane's book: 'The Autobiography of a Seaman.' in CD format. I have copied it to my mp3 player and listen to it on my jaunts about town.

You can listen to it here;
https://archive.org/details/autobio...

It's been transcribed by Timothy Ferguson, an Australian and I've started speaking with an Australian accent!

Alan thinks I'm fixated and should seek help.

John Townsend from <Notes on the life of Howard Staunton>, p.50:

<At the time the [Staunton - Cochrane] games were played, Cochrane was a barrister based at 10 Symond's Inn, Chancery Lane, so Goode's would have been about half a mile's walk for him - considerably nearer than Leicester Square.>

He refers to the <Post Office London Directory> of 1842 and 1843 (of which I can only confirm 1843).

Symond's Inn was an Inn of Chancery, rather than an Inn of Court:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inns_...

These inns were associated more with solicitors than barristers, but Cochrane is listed as a barrister in 1843. Seems the young Dickens briefly worked in Symond's Inn, which was demolished in 1873:

In the <CPC>, vol.i (1841), p.234, Staunton notes: <We are informed that Mr. Cochrane, the author of an admirable Treatise on Chess, and some years since the most brillliant player in the metropolis, after a long absence in India, has just arrived in this country.> The same number includes a letter from William Lewis dated August 2nd.

What's the reason for noting this here?

And yes, I also regret the google scans where they skip over title and cover pages for that very same reason.

Sometimes I too make indices for a given volume in my notes. Too bad us biographers can somehow share such work, like on zanchess or perhaps <jnpope>'s reference pages.

No, I can't guarantee it 100%.

Somehow I formed that impression, and I have recollections that different scans would sometimes have them, and other times not.

E.g. <jnpope>'s site has the excellent feature of showing different scans from different libraries - very useful when one scan doesn't have the OCR and the other does (or when one scan, or source(?), is missing pages and the other not)...

https://www.chessscotland.com/docum...