1. Lord Cooke of Thorndon'The Times(London United Kingdom 9 April 1996) 16. Not all peers have territorial additions as part of their title. In Lord Cooke's case, ‘Thorndon’ had to be added as there was another Lord Cooke (of Islandreagh). Thorndon is the part of Wellington where Lord Cooke was born and brought up, married, and worked for most of his time in the Court of Appeal.
2. Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 (UK) 39 & 40 Vict c 59 s 5.
3. Lord Cooke followed in the footsteps of Lord de Villiers of South Africa and Lord Sinha of India, but they did not sit in the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords.
4. I am grateful to the 15 Lords of Appeal and 27 members of the bar (in England and New Zealand) who enlightened me on the human interplay that lay behind the printed pages of the law reports.
5. eg R Cooke ‘Remoteness of Damages and Judicial Discretion’ [1978] CLJ 288; R Cooke ‘An Impossible Distinction’ (1991) 107 LQR 46.