Rodney Cockburn

File:Rodney Cockburn 1904.jpg

Cockburn was born in Kent Town, South Australia, a son of George (c. 1835 – 2 December 1909) and Mary Cockburn (née Stewart) (c. 1844 – 10 May 1880).

:His father, born in Alloa, Scotland had served in the Royal Navy, then around 1860 emigrated to South Australia, where two half-brothers had already settled. He completed his apprenticeship as a printer at the Register, where he continued to work for over 48 years.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article203453613 |title=A Grand Old Sailor |newspaper=Evening Journal |volume=XLIII |issue=12068 |location=Adelaide |date=2 December 1909 |accessdate=20 April 2017 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}} He named his son Rodney, appropriately born on Trafalgar Day, for one of his ships, {{HMS|Rodney|1833|6}}, which was in turn named for Admiral Rodney.

He was educated at Flinders Street State school, and joined the Register as a "library boy" around 1892,{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article129853781 |title=What Was Your First Job? |newspaper=The News |volume=II |issue=143 |location=Adelaide |date=7 January 1924 |accessdate=21 April 2017 |page=1 |via=National Library of Australia}} and was elevated to the literary staff, where he was rated "one of the best journalists in Australia"{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article211429456 |title=Personal. |newspaper=The Critic |location=Adelaide |date=15 December 1909 |accessdate=21 April 2017 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}} and "the smartest journalist of his years, column-crowding the dailies",{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article167807339 |title=Personalities. |newspaper=Quiz (Adelaide newspaper) |volume=XII |issue=607 |location=South Australia |date=18 April 1901 |accessdate=21 April 2017 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}} before he was made an "excellent sub-editor"{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212156308 |title=Personal Pips. |newspaper=The Critic |volume=XV |issue=856 |location=Adelaide |date=8 July 1914 |accessdate=21 April 2017 |page=19 |via=National Library of Australia}}

When in July 1914 the Peake government decided to institute a South Australian Hansard office, a function which had previously been contracted to the local press, Cockburn was selected assistant to Fred Johns's leader. He served in that position for eighteen years, until forced by ill-health to retire. Cockburn was admirably suited to the job, as he was noted for his speedy and accurate shorthand. Johns remembered his "bright and breezy nature, and sparkling wit and humor" somewhat offset by "temperamental faults — and who hasn't them".{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article34704574 |title=Death of Mr. R. Cockburn |newspaper=The Advertiser |location=Adelaide |date=29 September 1932 |accessdate=20 April 2017 |page=16 |via=National Library of Australia}}

The work entailed not only recording the proceedings of the two houses of Parliament, but also of the various committees, notably the Public Works committee. Nevertheless, the position clearly allowed of time and facilities to pursue private research, as Johns produced a huge number of concise biographies of notable Australians which became a series of reference books, and Cockburn the voluminous notes on the histories of South Australian towns and geographical features, and the ensuing work for which he is remembered today, the manuscript of which the Mitchell Library acquired in 1936,{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article142395409 |title=South Australian Nomenclature |newspaper=Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate |issue=18,540 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=16 March 1936 |accessdate=21 April 2017 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}} and which was used by Stewart Cockburn for a new edition of his famous father's work entitled What's in a Name.

In August 1916, at the height of World War I anti-German sentiment, Cockburn was appointed to the South Australian Nomenclature Committee,{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59824084 |title=German Names |newspaper=The Mail |volume=5 |issue=221 |location=Adelaide |date=12 August 1916 |accessdate=21 April 2017 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}} which was given the hugely popular task of expunging place names of Teutonic origin or association from the State's map. Their deliberations resulted in the Nomenclature Act of 1917 and their consequent wholesale replacement (see List of changed names).

In his younger days he was a member of the North Adelaide Cycling Club.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article161767897 |title=Cycling |newspaper=Adelaide Observer |volume=LVIII |issue=3,138 |date=23 November 1901 |accessdate=20 April 2017 |page=20 |via=National Library of Australia}}

He was also a lacrosse player and official, serving as secretary of the South Australian Lacrosse Association for several years. He was the organising chairman for a South Australian tour by the Canadian lacrosse team.

He has been mentioned as reporting lacrosse activities for The Register under the pen-name "Canadia".{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article25701924 |title=Lacrosse |newspaper=The West Australian |volume=XXIII |issue=6,583 |location=Western Australia |date=27 April 1907 |accessdate=21 April 2017 |page=13 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Rodney Cockburn married Marguerite Elizabeth Stapleton "Reta" Guerin (1883 – 5 January 1918) on 15 October 1910. Reta was a daughter of well-known accountant Herbert Robin Guerin, an AEI alumnus. He married again, to Ruby Ethel Adams Farmer ( –1954) on 1920. They had one son:

• (Alexander) Stewart Cockburn (1921–2009)

Alexander "Fid" Cockburn (1866–1943), Isabella Cockburn (1867–1903), George Stewart Cockburn (1869–1905), James Ralph Cockburn (1871–1900), Mary Cockburn (1873–1909), Walter Cockburn (1875–1903), and Margaret "Maggie" Cockburn (1879–1912) were siblings.

• Rodney Cockburn Nomenclature of South Australia Adelaide [S. Aust.] : W.K. Thomas & Co., 1908.
• Rodney Cockburn and Stewart Cockburn What's in a name? : nomenclature of South Australia : authoritative derivations of some 4000 historically significant place names [Glen Osmond, S. Aust.] : Ferguson Publications, 1984 {{ISBN|095925191X}}
• Rodney Cockburn, A. Dorothy Aldersey Pastoral Pioneers of South Australia Lynton Publications, Blackwood, S.A., 1925

Also

• Manning, Geoffrey H. [https://encore.slsa.sa.gov.au/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1639285__Smanning%27s%20place%20names__P0%2C2__Orightresult__U__X6?lang=eng&suite=cobalt Manning’s Place Names of South Australia From Aaron Creek to Zion Hill] (c.2006 ) "Includes facsimile of Rodney Cockburn's 'Nomenclature of South Australia' [1908]." CD-ROM, available at State Library of South Australia.

Cockburn's book Nomenclature of South Australia is not faultless, far from it. Geoff Manning, in the preface to Place Names of Our Land, the latest edition of his Romance of Place Names of South Australia, points out that apart from numerous omissions, something like one in ten entries contains errors of fact, some of them egregious. He is also critical of two pioneering toponymy historians, the surveyors C. H. Harris and H. C. Talbot who, when documented evidence was not available, published hearsay as fact. Information from these sources has been accepted uncritically by later historians, perpetuating many errors.{{cite web|url=http://www.geoffmanning.net.au/html/place-names.html|title=Geoff Manning's Insight into South Australian History|accessdate=21 April 2017}}

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Category:1877 births

Category:1932 deaths

Category:Journalists from South Australia

Category:Australian historians

Category:Australian lacrosse players