Lord Cowie, judge who reformed divorce law and was Scotland's oldest former rugby international – obituary

The Daily Telegraph · Telegraph Obituaries · 2026-11-05 14:44 UTC

He played in the 1953 Calcutta Cup, and in court earned a reputation as a sound and sensible judge in serious criminal trials

Lord Cowie, who has died aged 100, was a Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland (equivalent to a High Court judge in England and Wales) from 1977 to 1994, and played in the 1953 Calcutta Cup rugby match against England at Twickenham; he was feted as Scotland’s oldest surviving rugby international when he attended Murrayfield’s centenary celebrations in 2025.

William Lorn Kerr Cowie, always known as Lorn, was born in Glasgow on June 1 1926, the younger of two sons of Charles Rennie Cowie and his wife Nora, née Kerr.

Lorn’s grandfather, also Charles Rennie Cowie, was a chemist and inventor who pioneered the use of rice husks as furnace fuel in rice mills in Burma and neighbouring countries. He later established the successful trading company Charles R Cowie, with offices in Rangoon and Glasgow, supplying a wide range of goods to British India and the Far East.

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