Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/281

Lawrence by Frances, daughter of Charles Chauncy, M.D., of Derby, was born in 1751, and educated at St. Paul's School and St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1771 as seventh wrangler, and proceeded M.A. and was elected fellow in 1774. At college he was a contemporary of Edward Law, afterwards lord Ellenborough [q. v.] He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in June 1784, and to the degree of serjeant-at-law on 9 Feb. 1787, and in March 1794 succeeded Sir Henry Gould the younger [q. v.] as justice of the common pleas, being at the same time knighted. In the following June he was transferred to the court of King's bench on the resignation of Sir Francis Buller [q. v.] He was a member of the special commission that tried Thomas Hardy [q. v.], Horne Tooke, and other partisans of the French republic for high treason in 1794–6, and concurred with Lord Kenyon in dismissing the prosecution for libel brought by Tooke after his acquittal against the printer and publisher of a report of the House of Commons, which reflected on him and his colleagues as disaffected to the government. Lawrence was a judge of great ability and independence of mind, and sometimes differed from Lord Kenyon, notably in the case of Haycraft v. Creasy in 1801, an action for damages for false representation made in good faith, when Kenyon gave judgment for the plaintiff. Kenyon's vexation at being overruled — for the other members of the court agreed with Lawrence — is supposed to have hastened his death. Lawrence's extreme scrupulousness is evinced by the fact that his will contained a direction for the indemnification out of his estate of the losing party in a suit in which he considered that he had misdirected the jury. In consequence of a difference with Lord Ellenborough, he resigned his seat on the king's bench in March 1808, and returned to the common pleas, succeeding to the place vacant by the death of Sir Giles Rooke [q. v.] His health failing, he retired in Easter term 1812, and was succeeded by Sir Vicary Gibbs [q. v.] He died unmarried on 8 July 1814, and was buried in the church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, where there is a monument to him. He was something of a connoisseur in art, and had a small collection of pictures, including works by Spagnoletto, Franz Hals, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Opie, Morland, and other celebrated artists, which was sold after his death.

 LAWRENCE, STRINGER (1697–1775), major-general, 'father of the Indian army,' son of John Lawrence of Hereford and Mary, his wife, was born on 6 March (24 Feb. O.S.) 1697. The register of All Saints' Church, Hereford, records his baptism on 27 Feb. (O.S.) in the same year. His family is not mentioned by Duncumb (Hereford Collections). His name cannot be traced in the public record offices of London and Dublin, but he appears to have been appointed ensign at Gibraltar on 22 Dec. 1727, in General Jasper Clayton's regiment (afterwards the 14th foot, and now the West York) (manuscript Army List in War Office Library). It is not unlikely that he had served in the ranks of some regiment during the previous siege (cf. Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 23643). Lawrence became lieutenant in Clayton's on 11 March 1736. His name appears on the roll as late as 1745, but not in 1748 (manuscript Army Lists in War Office Library). During his period of service in it, the regiment was long at Gibraltar, and was employed as marines in Sir Charles Wager's fleet on the coast of Italy during the war between the Spaniards and Imperialists. It went to Flanders after Fontenoy, but returned immediately, and fought at Culloden. In 'Quarters of the Army' (Dublin Castle), 1748–9, Stringer Lawrence appears as a major in Hougnton's (45th foot) by mistake for Charles Lawrence [q. v.], who died a brigadier-general and governor of Nova Scotia in 1760.

In January 1748, when Dupleix at Pondicherry was initiating his plans for establishing French supremacy in Southern India, Lawrence, a stout hale man of fifty, described as a soldier of great experience, arrived at Fort St. David from England with a commission as major to command all the company's troops in the East Indies, and a salary of 820l. a year, inclusive of his allowance as member of council (, Hist. Madras Army, i. 25). He received the king's brevet of 'major in the East Indies only' 9 Feb. the same year. One of his first acts was to form the independent companies of European foot, which the company had long maintained for the defence of their factories, into a battalion five hundred strong, the Madras European regiment, afterwards the famous Madras fusiliers (now the 1st Dublin fusiliers). In June 1748 Lawrence cleverly 