Son of Engine Fitter, John Cockburn, and his wife, Mary, Edward started his education at Holy Trinity Elementary School in South Shields, and joined the High School on a Corporation Scholarship at the age of 12.

He left at 15 he left school to become a Commercial Clerk, and by the age of 16 was a clerk with North Eastern Railway, living in Gosforth.

He joined the 16th Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiiliers, and died of wounds sustained in action in France on 1-Jul-1916 (almost certainly in the Battle of the Somme).

He was buried at the Thiepval Memorial, in the Somme.