Born 20 March 1858 at The Grange, Ware, Herts, the fifth of the seven sons of Robert Lawrence, owner of maltings at Ware and Hertford, and of Elizabeth Dawes, his wife. He was educated at the Cholmely School, Highgate under J Bradley Dyne, DD, and played rugby in the first XV. He began to study law in a solicitor's office, but in 1879 entered University College Hospital. He soon attracted the attention of Sir George Dancer Thane, professor of anatomy at University College, by his skilful dissections and his artistic powers, and became his assistant demonstrator. After a short experience as assistant to a doctor in Devonshire he returned to London and was appointed curator of the museum at University College in succession to Charles Stonham in October 1890, became lecturer on morbid anatomy in UCF Medical School in 1910, and was pathologist to the hospital from 1910 until 1924. As curator of the museum at University College he was responsible for the description of the surgical and obstetric specimens, and he arranged all the preparations in the museum of the new medical school after its separation from the College. In 1923 he retired from University College and went to the Royal College of Surgeons to assist Cecil Beadles, who followed Samuel Shattock as pathological curator. Beadles died in 1933 and Lawrence continued to serve until March 1935, when he retired on account of ill-health. His retirement was marked by a special vote of thanks from the President and Council of the College and by a farewell banquet at the Langham Hotel given by his numerous friends and colleagues. He lived during his active life at Latimer Cottage, Epsom Lane, Tadworth, Surrey, and died on 26 June 1936 at Shaston, Little Common, Sussex, survived by his wife, Christina Knewstub, whom he had married on 6 August 1902, and by his only child, a daughter. Lawrence was a man of many interests in life and his motto was "thorough", for all that he did was well done and always to the very best of his ability. Well read in Latin and Greek, he knew French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and Russian, and kept himself well informed of the chief works on pathology in those languages. His artistic ability is seen in the drawings of the bones which he made for the tenth edition of Quain's *Anatomy*. He was devoted to his garden and was skilled in the almost lost art of mowing with a scythe. He was a true friend and a man of great modesty and self-effacement. Publications: Necrosis of the cortex of both kidneys, with Sir John Rose Bradford, *J Path Bact* 1893, 5, 195. The optic commissure. *J Anat* 1894, 28, *Proc Anat Soc* pp 18-20. Redescription of the specimen of spondylolisthesis in the museum of University College. *Trans Obstet Soc Lond* 1900, 42, 75-89. *University College, London: Descriptive catalogue of surgical pathology*, new edition, with Raymond Johnson. London, 1899-1906. True hermaphroditism in the human subject. *Trans Path Soc Lond* 1905-06, 57, 21-44, with summary in Latin. Tumours, in Choyce's *System of Surgery*, 3rd edition, 1932, 1, 328-587, with Raymond Johnson. A note on the pathology of the Kanam mandible; notes on the pathology of a neolithic skeleton and also certain pathological bones from Bromhead's site, Elmenteita, appendices A and D, in L S B Leakey's *Stone-age races of Kenya*, 1935. He delivered the Erasmus Wilson demonstrations at the RCS 1928, on surgical specimens in the museum; they were not published.