William Scott Stowell, 1st Baron Stowell

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William Scott Stowell, 1st Baron Stowell (17 October 1745 – 28 January 1836) was an English judge and jurist

1 Biography
2 Judgments
3 Further Reading
4 External links
5 References

[edit] Biography

Scott was born at Heworth, a village about four miles from Newcastle upon Tyne, the son of a coalfitter (or tradesman engaged in the transport of coal). His younger brother John became Lord Chancellor as the Earl of Eldon.

Scott was educated at Newcastle Royal Grammar School and Corpus Christi College at Oxford University, where he gained a Durham scholarship in 1761. In 1764 he graduated and became first a probationary fellow and then as successor to William (afterwards the well known Sir William) Jones a tutor of University College.

As Camden reader of ancient history he rivalled the reputation of Blackstone. Although he had joined the Middle Temple in 1762, it was not till 1776 that Scott devoted himself to a systematic study of law. He graduated as doctor of civil law, and, after a customary year of silence, commenced practice in the ecclesiastical courts. His professional success was rapid. In 1783 he became registrar of the court of faculties, and in 1788 judge of the consistory court and advocate-general, in that year too receiving the honor of knighthood; and in 1798 he was made judge of the high court of admiralty.

Sir William Scott twice contested the representation of Oxford University in 1780 without success, but successfully in 1801. He also sat for Downton in 1790. Upon the coronation of George IV in 1821 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Stowell. After a life of distinguished judicial service Lord Stowell retired from the bench – from the consistory court in August 1821, and from the high court of admiralty in December 1827. His mental faculties became gradually feebler in his old age, and he died on January 28, 1836.

Lord Stowell was twice married – in 1781 to Anna Maria, eldest daughter and heiress of John Bagnall of Early Court, Berks, by whom he had four children, one of these, a daughter, survived him; and, in 1813, to the dowager marchioness of Sligo.

[edit] Judgments

Lord Stowell's judgments were models of both literary execution and judicial reasoning. His style was chaste yet not inornate, nervous without abruptness, and perfectly adjusted in every instance to the subject with which he dealt. His decisions in the cases of Dalyrmple v. Dalyrmple (Dr Dodsons Report) and Evans v. Evans (I Hagg. 35)from their combined force and grace, from the steadiness with which every collateral issue is set aside, from theis subtle insight into human. motives and from the light which they cast on marriage lawdeserve and will repay attentive perusal. Lord Stowell composed with great care, and some of the manscripts that he revised for the Haggard and Phillimores Reports were full of interlineations. Stowells mind was judicial rather than forensic reasoning, not as for a dialectic victory nor so as to convince the parties on whose suit he was deciding, but only with sufficient clearness, futness and force to justify the decision at which he had arrived.

The chief doctrines of international law with the assertion and illustration of which the name of Lord Stowell is identified are as follows. The perfect equality and entire independence of all states (Le Louis, 2 Dod. 243) a logical deduction from the Austinian philosophy and still one of the fundamental principles of English jurisprudence; that the elementary rules of international law bind even semi-barbarous states (the Hurtige Hane, 2 Rob. 325); that blockade to be binding must be effectual (the Betsey, I Rob. 93); and that contraband of war is to be determined by probable destination (the Jonge Margaretha, I Rob. 189). In the famous Swedish convoy case (the Maria, I Rob. 350; see, too, the Recovery, 6 C. Rob. 3489) Lord Stowell asserted that a prize court is a court not merely of the country in which it sits but of the law of nations. The seat of judicial authority, he added, in words which have become classic, is indeed locally here, in the belligerent country, but the law itself has no locality. His dictum concerning the right of a belligerent to sink a neutral ship, when unable to take her before a prize court, was much quoted in 1904 in reference to the sinking of the Knight Commander by the Russians in the Far East.

The judgments of Lord Stowell were, almost without exception, confirmed on appeal, and they are to this day (as of 1911) the international law of England, and have become presumptive though not conclusive evidence of the international law of America.

[edit] Further Reading

'Sir William Scott, Lord Stowell: Judge in the High Court of Admiralty, 1798-1828' by Henry J. Bourguignon - Cambridge 1987: Cambridge University Press