COCKERELL, Sir Charles (1755-1837), of Sezincote House, Glos. and Hyde Park Corner, London, Mdx.

align="left">By 1832 Cockerell, a wealthy nabob with mercantile and banking interests in Calcutta, had represented a number of different constituencies, and had, with just one brief interruption, sat for Evesham since 1819 on the interest of his father-in-law, John Rushout, 1^st baron Northwick. A lax attender and silent member, he had from 1816 ‘unvaryingly identified’ with the Liverpool and Wellington administrations.1HP Commons 1790-1832, i. 469-70; HP Commons 1820-32, iv. 691-3; G. May, A Descriptive History of the Town of Evesham (1845), 303; Daily News, 16 Nov. 1849. Thereafter, however, he supported the Grey ministry’s reform bill in 1831-2, at which time he presented himself as a ‘steadfast Reformer’, but offered ‘no pledges except for the benefit of the Empire’.2Dod MS, i. 269.

Considered by his critics to have ‘abandoned the party with whom he had long and universally acted’, Cockerell stood again for Evesham in 1832. He was re-elected in a contest against a Conservative for which he was made to ‘pay smartly’, and he served as mayor of the town the following year.3The Times, 23 Jan. 1837; HP Commons 1820-32, iii. 233; Morning Post, 19 Oct. 1833. In 1835 he again stood ‘upon the old family influence’, his dominant interest at Evesham now being looked upon as that of ‘the high aristocratic party’.4Daily News, 22 Nov. 1849. His long connection with the borough, for which he was said to have done much (he donated generously to local charities), helped him to head the poll. Faced by an upsurge of radicalism in the borough, he stood on a more conservative platform, being prepared to ‘give a “fair trial” to Sir Robert Peel’s administration’.5Daily News, 5 Dec. 1849. Having throughout his career ‘uniformly sided with the government of the day’, he was now regarded as a conservative Whig, having committed himself to the defence of the rights and liberties of the freemen of the borough, and support for ‘the Crown under the Constitution’.6Examiner, 7 Dec. 1834; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 8 Jan. 1835; Dod MS, i. 269. Indeed, his Conservative opponent paid tribute to his ‘sound Conservative principles’, and The Examiner listed him amongst its ‘Doubtful Men’, expecting to find him ‘siding with his Tory friends’.7Examiner, 8 Feb. 1835. In April 1835, however, he was appointed as a commissioner for Indian affairs, a move which brought accusations of jobbery from the Conservative press, and it was even rumoured that he was to receive a peerage from the new Whig administration.8Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 30 Apr. 1835; Morning Post, 5 May 1835; Newcastle Courant, 24 April 1835.

Cockerell is not known to have spoken in the Commons after 1832, or to have served on any committees or introduced any bills. He participated in only four divisions in 1833, voting for the Irish coercion bill and opposing Joseph Hume’s motion to abolish flogging in the army, the proposed grant of £20 million to compensate slave owners, and the proposal for shorter parliaments, 23 July 1833. He presented a petition for the relief of Dissenters, 28 Feb. 1834, but only voted once in that session to oppose Hume’s motion for a low fixed duty on corn, 7 Mar. 1834.9Parliamentary Test Book (1835), 39. He supported the Whig government over municipal reform, 23 June 1835, voted for the address to the king’s speech in February 1836, and that summer supported the Irish municipal reform and church bills.10Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 13 Mar. 1835, 1 Sept. 1836; Stenton, Who’s Who of British MPs, i. 83.

Outside parliament, Cockerell continued his commercial activities, and Benjamin Disraeli reported doing ‘great business’ with his company in 1836.11B. Disraeli to I. Disraeli, 6 Feb. 1836, in Benjamin Disraeli Letters, eds. J.A. Gunn, J. Matthews, D.M. Shurman, ii. 147. He was said to have been ‘universally beloved and respected in private life’, and he and his second wife entertained on a lavish scale when in London.12The Times, 23 Jan. 1837; Morning Post, 15 May, 12 July 1834, 28 Aug. 1835. In March 1836 his daughter, Harriet, married George William Coventry, viscount Deerhurst, the eldest son of the 8^th earl of Coventry. Cockerell sat for Evesham until his death, when the seat was being taken by his Conservative kinsman George Rushout.13Morning Post, 22 Mar. 1836; HP Commons 1820-32, iii. 233. Having been seriously indisposed for two months, he died at Sezincote in January 1837. His title, business interests (including a fortune of £140,000), and estates passed, on his wife’s death in 1851, to his son, Charles Rushout Cockerell (1809-69), who had married the daughter of Thomas, 3^rd baron Foley in 1834, and who changed his surname to Rushout in 1849.14Morning Post, 26 Oct. 1836, 9 Jan. 1837; Gent. Mag. (1837) i. 317, (1851) ii. 670; P.J. Marshall and W.G.J. Kuiters, ‘Cockerell, Sir Charles’, Oxford DNB, xii. 354-5; HP Commons 1820-32, iv. 693.