An early Scottish pamphlet on hydraulics and pneumatics: William Welwood's De aqua in altum per fistulas plumbeas facile exprimenda apologia demonstrativa (1582)

Abstract

William Welwood (c.1552–1624) taught at St Andrews, Scotland's oldest university, where he was its first professor of mathematics, and later professor of law. As well as better-known legal works, he published a short pamphlet on hydraulics and pneumatics here discussed. After an outline of the fractious personal, religious, and political environment in which Welwood lived and worked, the content of his pamphlet is described. Its place is then examined within wider scientific and technological contexts.