During World War I he worked as a Government Inspector of Aeroplanes for the Royal Flying Corps at Farnborough and subsequently became Head of the Accidents Branch of the Department of the Controller-General of Civil Aviation at the Air Ministry.

[5] However, George Cockburn (Senior), who had travelled south to seek his fortune, had become sufficiently prosperous to be able to send both his sons to be educated at fee paying schools in Scotland.

John, who became a Presbyterian minister,[6] attended Edinburgh Academy then Glasgow University[7] and George (Junior) was sent to Loretto School in Musselburgh from 1887 until 1892.

[9] On leaving Oxford he went to the Chemistry Laboratory of St George's Hospital in London to work with John Addyman Gardner [10] on the study of fenchones.

[19] In February 1909 Bertram Cockburn was elected to membership of the Royal Aero Club[20] and, later that year, travelled to France to become the first pupil in Henri Farman's flying school at Châlons-sur-Marne.

[26] Although he actively promoted air races as an incentive to develop improvements in aircraft performance,[27] he never flew competitively again following the death of his friend Charles Rolls at Bournemouth.

In 1913, as war approached, Bertram Cockburn resigned his Fellowship of the Chemical Society [35] and in 1914 was appointed to be an Inspector of Aeroplanes for the Aeronautical Inspection Directorate (AID) of the Royal Flying Corps at Farnborough.