Born in London on August 23rd, 1831, the second son of William Lawson, of the firm of Trower, Trower & Lawson, wine merchants of the City of London, by his wife, Anne Norton. After being educated at the Blackheath Proprietary School he entered King's College in 1848 and served for a year as House Surgeon to Sir William Fergusson (qv), being also Physician's Assistant and Physician-Accoucheur's Assistant. He entered the Army as an Assistant Surgeon in 1854 and left England with the first draft of troops for Malta. He was detailed for duty at Varna on the outbreak of the Crimean War, and served with the 3rd Division under General Sir Richard England; from Varna he went to the Crimea and saw the first shot fired at Bulganak. He was present at the battles of Alma, Inkerman, and Sebastopol, and was sent to Balaclava as Staff Assistant Surgeon about the middle of January, 1855. He had a severe attack of typhus fever in May, 1855, followed by complete paraplegia. Although he had been gazetted Assistant Surgeon to the 3rd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, he was invalided home and resigned his commission on January 15th, 1856. Lawson then decided to practise in London, and settled at 63 Park Street, Grosvenor Square. He turned his attention more particularly to ophthalmic surgery, probably at the suggestion of Sir William Bowman (qv), who had been Assistant Surgeon at King's College Hospital when Lawson was House Surgeon. Becoming Clinical Assistant to Bowman at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields, he was elected Assistant Surgeon to the Hospital in 1862, on the same day as Jonathan Hutchinson (qv), and on the retirement of Alfred Poland (qv) was appointed full Surgeon in 1867, retiring with the rank of Consulting Surgeon in 1891. He held the post of Surgeon to the Great Northern Hospital in 1858 and was also Surgeon to the Westminster General Dispensary. To the Middlesex Hospital he was elected Assistant Surgeon in 1863, Surgeon in 1871, Lecturer on Surgery in 1878, and Consulting Surgeon in 1896. At the Royal College of Surgeons he served as a Member of Council from 1884-1892, and in 1886 he was appointed Surgeon-Oculist to Queen Victoria. Lawson endeared himself to his hospital patients by the personal interest he manifested in their welfare. His treatment went far beyond the mere prescription of drugs or the performance of operations. He would instruct a mother how to feed, clothe, and train her child. He would tell a patient for whom nothing could be done to restore the lost sight, what his future might be and how to get to work to earn a livelihood. Lawson also had an arrangement with a neighbouring butcher by which he could at his own expense order so many pounds of meat for those who needed food more than medicine. Nor did his generosity to hospital patients end with supplying sound advice and meat; many to whom some unusually disastrous circumstance had occurred would be led quietly aside and return with a smiling face and closed palm. He married on March 5th, 1863, Mary, daughter of William Thomson, of the Indian Medical Service, and by her had seven sons, of whom the fourth, Sir Arnold Lawson, KBE, was Surgeon to the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields, and Ophthalmic Surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital. Lawson died in London on October 12th, 1903, and was buried at Hildenborough, Kent. He practised ophthalmic surgery as a part of general surgery, and was little affected by the tendency to specialize which completely divorced the two subjects before his death. He appears in Jamyn Brookes's portrait group of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, 1884. Publications: *Injuries of the Eye, Orbit and Eyelids, their Immediate and Remote Effects*, 1867. *Diseases and Injuries of the Eye, their Medical and Surgical Treatment*, 1869; 6th ed, 1903.