[2] From the age of sixteen, he trained in the architectural practice of his father, who held the post of surveyor to East India House, and several London estates.

[3] From 1809 to 1810 Cockerell became an assistant to Robert Smirke,[4] helping in the rebuilding of Covent Garden Theatre (the forerunner of today's Royal Opera House).

[5] Due to the Napoleonic Wars much of Europe was closed to the British, so he headed for Cadiz, Malta and Constantinople (Istanbul); from there he went to Troy, finally arriving in Athens, Greece by January 1811.

[18] Cockerell was presented to Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany and was awarded the diploma of Academician of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno.

[22] From Venice, Cockerell visited Andrea Palladio's buildings along the Brenta (river) and at Vicenza,[23] passing on to Mantua and the Palazzo del Te, Parma, Milan, Genoa and back to Rome from where he set off in March 1817 to return home via Paris.

[31] In 1833, following the resignation of Sir John Soane, he became surveyor to the Bank of England, and made additions to its London building, as well as designing branch offices in Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, and Plymouth.

[3] His exhibits at the Royal Academy included reconstructions of ancient Rome and Athens and a capriccio entitled "Tribute to the Memory of Sir Christopher Wren, being a Collection of his Principal Works"; these became well known through published engravings[3] As an archaeologist, Cockerell is remembered for removing the reliefs from the temple of Apollo at Bassae, near Phigalia, which are now in the British Museum.

The Royal Academy of Arts composed a brief commemorative biography of Cockerell, including the following sentiment which speaks of his great work as a student of architecture: At the heart of Cockerell's emotional experience of the power of the antique to fire the imagination lay an extraordinary visual sensitivity to the mass and volume of the components of architecture, which for him were never mere abstract, weightless forms or quotations borrowed from the past, but acted together as a constantly renewable expression of man's innate need to create beauty on earth.

I am sure that the grave & solemn arch[itectur]e of Temples were never adopted to Houses, but a much lighter style, as we may judge by the vases, the object being space & commodiousness.

[34] The engagement ring was bought for £27 10s 0d in Edinburgh on 29 March and the wedding took place on 4 June 1828 in St James's Church, Piccadilly, the Bishop of London William Howley officiating.

[34] The honeymoon started at Liphook, moving on to Chichester, the Isle of Wight, crossing to Portsmouth where they toured the Dockyard, and finally on 14 June The Grange, Northington.

[31] By 1851 Cockerell was in poor health and spent that summer recuperating at his sister Anne Pollen's house in Somerset,[37] from this time on his architectural practice virtually ceased.

[39] Whilst in Edinburgh and working on the National Monument with fellow Freemason, William Henry Playfair, Cockerell was Initiated into Scottish Freemasonry in Lodge Holyrood House (St Luke's), No.44 on 18 May 1824.