William Scott, Lord Stowell

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

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

Scott 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 honour of knighthood; and in 1798 he was made judge of the high court of admiralty. In this capacity he heard on appeal two important cases having to do with the abolition of the slave trade.

On 22 May 1809 HMS Crocodile took Donna Marianna on the Cape Coast for breach of the Act for the abolition of the slave trade. The Vice admiralty court at Sierra Leone condemned the vessel. Although Donna Marianna was ostensibly a Portuguese vessel, Scott upheld the seizure on the grounds that she was actually a British vessel and her Portuguese papers were a fraud.

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