About Us
The Cockburn Association was officially formed on 15 June 1875 at a public meeting addressed by Lord Moncrief of Tullibole. The first major campaign by the Association was to resist the removal of trees at Bruntsfield Links. The Cockburn has campaigned for the retention and improvement of Edinburgh’s open and green spaces ever since. Many of the Association’s campaigns have required considerable patience and determination. In 1877 the Association campaigned to bring land along the Water of Leith into public use and some 98 years later we saw success with the opening of the Water of Leith Walkway. The Association was also instrumental in opposing some of the damaging plans for inner city highways and Edinburgh, as a result, has been left unsullied by inner city motorways.
2025 marks the Association’s 150th anniversary. To mark this, we have published a book, Campaigning for Edinburgh: The Cockburn Association 1875-2049, chronicling the Association’s history of active stewardship of the city, and looking forward imagining what the city might look like in 2049.
Timeline
Discover more about some of the Association’s campaigning activities over the last 150 years in this interactive timeline.
Biography of Henry Cockburn
Find out more about the remarkable judge, author and revolutionary conservationist who inspired a group of Edinburgh citizens to establish the Cockburn Association in 1875.
Edinburgh Bibliography
A selection of digital resources, freely available online on a variety of third-party websites.
Historic Office Bearers
A roll of the remarkable women and men who have been members of the Cockburn Council since 1875.
Library
An online library of PDFs scanned and uploaded from our extensive collection of Cockburn Association documents publicly or privately published over the last century and a half.