Dr. Alexander Murray Cockburn


c.1901 - 1959

Geologist. Born in Edinburgh and educated at the University of Edinburgh, Cockburn is noted for assisting an elderly John Mathieson (1855 - 1945) in the first detailed topographic survey of St. Kilda in 1927, while still a student. Cockburn returned the following year to undertake a geological survey which he published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1935. Cockburn was employed by the University of Edinburgh from 1931 until his death, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1935. He served as Secretary of the Edinburgh Geological Society (1939-44) and was elected its President in 1958. He took a particular interest in the geological collections of the University, serving for a time as their Curator, and the Cockburn Museum of Geology and Geophysics was named in his honour.


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