William M. Gordon, MA, LLB, PhD, Hon LLD, FRSE (1933-2012)

Issued: Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:43:00 BST

The School of Law is very sad to announce the death of Professor Bill Gordon on Saturday 1st September. Our thoughts and best wishes are with his wife Isabella, children: Malcolm, Melitta, Mark and Elise and grandchildren at this time.

William M Gordon began his career at the University of Aberdeen, where he was a pupil of David Daube, Peter Stein and T B Smith. He qualified as a solicitor and then lectured at the Universities of Aberdeen and Glasgow before being appointed to the Douglas chair of civil law at Glasgow in 1969, previously held by Tony Thomas and then Alan Watson. He was Literary Director of the Stair Society from 1985 to 1998, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1995, and was awarded the honorary degree of LLD by the University of Aberdeen in 2005. He retired from the Douglas chair in 1999 to become a professorial research fellow in the School of Law. His major publications include Roman Law, Scots Law, and Legal History. Selected Essays (2007), Scottish Land Law (1989), currently in its third edition (2009-, with Scott Wortley), Studies in the Transfer of Property by Traditio (1970), and European Legal History: Sources and Institutions (2000, co-authored with O F Robinson and T D Fergus). He has also edited (with T D Fergus), Legal History in the Making : Proceedings of the Ninth British Legal History Conference, Glasgow 1989 (1991), and (with O F Robinson) The Institutes of Gaius (1988). He was elected Vice-President of the Stair Society in 2011.