Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lawrence, Charles (d.1760)
LAWRENCE, CHARLES (d. 1760), governor of Nova Scotia, was appointed ensign in Colonel Edward Montague's foot (afterwards 11th Devon regiment) in 1727, and in 1741 was promoted to captain-lieutenant in Houghton's foot (then raising as the 54th, since the 46th foot, and now 1st Derby). He became captain in the regiment in 1742, and major in 1747. In some Irish lists of the period the name of Stringer Lawrence [q. v.] is wrongly inserted in his stead. He accompanied the 45th to Nova Scotia; was appointed a member of council on 19 Oct. 1749, and the year after commanded a small expedition to Chinecto, which built Fort Lawrence at the head of the bay of Fundy. Lawrence's journal of the expedition is in British Museum Addit. MS. 32821, f. 345. Parkman (Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. i.) relates Lawrence's subsequent troubles with the unhappy Acadians in much detail. He succeeded General Hopson in the government of the colony in 1753, was appointed lieutenant-governor in 1754, and governor in 1766. He commanded the reserve in Lord Loudon's operations in 1757, became a brigadier-general 3 Dec. 1757, and commanded a brigade at the siege of Louisburg, Cape Breton. Lawrence died at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 17 Oct. 1760, from a chill taken when heated with dancing at a ball. There is a public monument to him in St. Paul's Church, Halifax.
[Home Office Military Entry Books in Public Becord Office, London; Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, London, 1884, vols. i. ii. and references there given; B. Murdoch's Hist. of Nova Scotia, Halifax, 1857, ii. 148, 289, 485; Appleton's Encycl. Amer. Biog. vol. iii.; Lawrence's Papers, 1753-4, from Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 19072; and abstracts of his letters, 1755, Addit. MS. 33029, ff. 221, 232.]