Profile of John Lawrence on Famous Like Me

John Laird Mair Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence (4 March 1811 - 27 June 1879) was a British statesman who served as Viceroy of India from 1864 to 1869.

Lawrence spent his early years in Londonderry, Northern Ireland and was educated at Foyle College (now Foyle and Londonderry College), where a statue to him stands (having been, originally, erected in Lahore). The statue, by Sir Joseph Boehme, once showed Lawrence with a pen in one hand and a sword in the other to illustrate his versatility as an administrator and a soldier but vandals have since damaged the sword.

Lawrence went to India in 1829 along with his older brother, Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence. He soon became a magistrate and tax collector in Delhi, where he was known for his concern for the plight of the peasantry.

During the First Sikh War of 1845 to 1846, Lawrence organized the supplying of the British army in the Punjab and became Commissioner of the Jullundur district, serving under his brother, the Governor of the province. In that role his was known for his administrative reforms, for subduing the hill tribes, and for his attempts to end the custom of suttee.

In 1849, following the Second Sikh War, he became a member of the Punjab Board of Administration under his brother, and was responsible for numerous reforms of the province, including the abolition of internal duties, establishment of a common currency and postal system, and encouraged the development of Punjabi infrastructure, earning him the sobriquet of "the Saviour of the Punjab." In this work his efforts to limit the power of local elites brought him into conflict with his brother, and ultimately led to the abolition of the Administrative Board, instead becoming chief commissioner in the executive branch of the province.

In that role, Lawrence was partly responsible for preventing the spread of the Mutiny to Punjab in 1857, and negotiated a treaty with the Afghan ruler Dost Mohammed Khan, and later led the troops which recaptured Delhi from the rebellious sepoys.

He returned to England in 1859, but was sent back to India in 1863 to become Viceroy to succeed the Earl of Elgin, who had unexpectedly died. As viceroy, Lawrence pursued a cautious policy, avoiding entanglement in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf. In domestic affairs, he increased educational opportunities for Indians, but at the same time limited the use of native Indians in high civil service posts.

He was raised to the peerage as Baron Lawrence of the Punjab on his return to England in 1869, and died ten years later. A boarding house at the East India Company College (today Haileybury and Imperial Service College) and another at Foyle College was subsequently named after him.

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