English lawyer, born at Nowers, Somersetshire, on the 24th of February 1832, the son of Christopher Cookson of Nowers. The name of Crackanthorpe was assumed by him in 1888 on succeeding to the estate of Newbiggin, Westmoreland. He was educated at Merchant Taylors’ school and St. John’s College, Oxford, when he took his degree in classics in 1854, winning the Eldon law and University mathematical scholarships. He was called to the bar in 1859, and soon became well known not only as a barrister but as a keen student of criminology. He became a Q.C. in 1875, and from 1893 to 1899 was standing counsel to Oxford University. He took much interest in eugenics, and was president of the Eugenics Education Society from 1909 to 1911. He published Population and Progress (1907). He died in London on the 16th of November 1913. (See authored article: Farrer, Baron Herschell.)
