William Welwod (1578–1622) was a Scottish jurist who was the first to formulate the laws of the sea in an insular Germanic language.
He was a professor of civil law at the University of St Andrews until 1611, when he resigned his chair and moved to England.
Welwod wrote a Scots language[1] treatise on the law of the sea, The sea-law of Scotland, published in 1590 by Robert Waldegrave – 'the earliest book of maritime jurisprudence'.
It was written in a vernacular style, and presented the sea law in the form of simple rules.
He later expanded this chapter, "Of the Community and Propriety of the Seas", into a full work entitled De dominio maris (1615).