Thomas Cochran was a lawyer and judge in Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island is a Canadian province consisting of an island of the same name, as well as other islands. The maritime province is the smallest in the nation in both land area and population...

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He was born in Halifax

City of Halifax

Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...

, the son of Thomas Cochran

Thomas Cochran (Nova Scotia politician)

Thomas Cochran was an Irish-born merchant and political figure in Nova Scotia. He represented Liverpool township in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1775 to 1785....

. He studied at King's College

University of King's College

The University of King's College is a post-secondary institution in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. King's is a small liberal arts university offering mainly undergraduate programs....

, then at Lincoln's Inn

Lincoln's Inn

The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn. Although Lincoln's Inn is able to trace its official records beyond...

 and was called to the bar in 1801. In that same year, Cochran was appointed Chief Justice for Prince Edward Island. In June 1802, he was named judge for the Court of King's Bench for Upper Canada

Upper Canada

The Province of Upper Canada was a political division in British Canada established in 1791 by the British Empire to govern the central third of the lands in British North America and to accommodate Loyalist refugees from the United States of America after the American Revolution...

. Cochran was travelling aboard the schooner HMS Speedy to attend a trial in the province when the ship sunk in a winter storm on Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south by the American state of New York. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, was named for the lake. In the Wyandot language, ontarío means...

. There were no survivors.