Background
He was born at Heworth, a village about 4 miles from Newcastle, on the 17th of October 1745, the son of a "coalfitter" (or tradesman engaged in the transport of coal). His younger brother John became the famous Lord Chancellor Eldon.
He was born at Heworth, a village about 4 miles from Newcastle, on the 17th of October 1745, the son of a "coalfitter" (or tradesman engaged in the transport of coal). His younger brother John became the famous Lord Chancellor Eldon.
He was educated at Newcastle Royal Grammar School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 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. In 1779 he graduated as doctor of civil law, and, after the 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 honour 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 (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 the 28th of January 1836.
Lord Stowell's judgments are models alike of literary execution and of judicial reasoning. His style is chaste yet not inornate, nervous without abruptness, and perfectly adjusted in every instance to the subject with which he deals.
His decisions in the cases of Dalyrmple v. Dalyrmple (Dr Dodson's Report) and Evans v. Evans (1 Hagg. 35) - from their combined force and grace, from the steadiness with which every collateral issue is set aside, from theif subtle insight into human motives and from the light which they cast on marriage law-deserve and will repay attentive perusal. Lord Stowell composed with great care, and some of the manuscripts which he revised for Haggard and Phillimore's Reports were full of interlineations.
The chief doctrines of international law with the assertion and illustration of which the name of Lord Stowell is identified are these; 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, " 1 Rob. 93); and that contraband of war is to be determined by "probable destination" (the "Jonge Margaretha, " 1 Rob. 189). In the famous Swedish convoy case (the "Maria, " 1 Rob. 350; see, too, the " Recovery, " 6 C. Rob. 348-9) 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 the international law of England, and have become presumptive though not conclusive evidence of the international law of America. "I have taken care, " wrote Justice Story, "that they shall form the basis of the maritime law of the United States, and I have no hesitation in saying that they ought to do so in that of every civilized country in the world. "
Quotations:
"A dinner lubricates business. " (As quoted in Life of Johnson (1791) by James Boswell, Vol. viii. , p. 67, note. )
"In the first place, it is not improper to observe, that the law of cases of necessity is not likely to be well furnished with precise rules; necessity creates the law, it supersedes rules; and whatever is reasonable and just in such cases, is likewise legal; it is not to be considered as matter of surprise, therefore, if much instituted rule is not to be found on such subjects. " (The Gratitudine (18 December 1801); as published in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the High Court of Admiralty, Commencing with the Judgments of the Right Hon. Sir William Scott, Michaelmas Term, 1798, Vol. III (1802), p. 266. )
"Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude. " (As quoted in History of the Anti-Corn Law League (1853), by Archibald Prentice, p. 54; around 1876 this began to began to be cited to W. Scott, and then around 1880 sometimes to Walter Scott, but without citations of source, including a variant: "Selfish ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude" in a publication of 1907. )
"The elegant simplicity of the three per cents. " (As quoted in Lives of the Lord Chancellors (1845) by John Campbell, Vol. x. Chap. 212; this precedes the use by Benjamin Disraeli of "The sweet simplicity of the three per cents", in Endymion (1880). )
"On parent knees, a naked new-born child, Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled; So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep, Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep. "
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1793.
Stowell's 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, fulness and force to justify the decision at which he had arrived.
Lord Stowell married twice. His first marriage, in 1781, was to Anna Maria, eldest daughter and heiress of John Bagnall of Erleigh Court, near Reading, in Berkshire, where the two later resided. They had four children, one of whom, a daughter, survived him. He married again, in 1813, the dowager Marchioness of Sligo, née Louisa Catharine Howe, younger daughter of the first and last Earl Howe of the 1788 creation, widow of John Browne, 1st Marquess of Sligo.
