Born 15 March 1920 Sandanam Joseph Lawrence studied medicine in Colombo at the University of Ceylon and qualified in 1946. He held house appointments in Colombo and entered the health department, serving for four years as an anaesthetist to the Government Hospital in Kandy and three years in the General Hospital, Colombo. For four years from 1955 he worked in England and then returned home to surgical appointments in Ceylon. He returned to England in 1965 and obtained the FRCS in 1967. He returned to Ceylon in 1968 to an appointment as resident surgeon at Colombo and was resident surgeon at Kandy Hospital when he died on 28 April 1971.