Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/279

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Lawrence
273
Lawrence

so impaired that, in spite of a somewhat severe operation, active work became almost impossible to him, and he was disabled from reading and writing. He only intervened again in public affairs to oppose with all the weight or his authority and knowledge the proceedings which led to the Afghan war of 1878-9. He sent a series of letters to the 'Times.' denouncing in strong terms any advance beyond the existing frontier, and became chairman of a committee formed to oppose the policy of the government. But throughout the early summer of 1879 his strength was failing rapidly. He made a last speech in the House of Lords on the Indian budget on 19 June, and on the 26th he died. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. Two statues were erected to him, one at Calcutta, and one in Waterloo Place, London. There is also a bust of him by Woolner and a portrait by G. F. Watts, R. A., which belongs to the artist.

The impression which he produced on those who knew him was happily expressed by Lord Stanley, who said that he possessed 'a certain heroic simplicity.' He was essentially a man of action, and of prompt and vigorous action, not a man of speech (see Memoirs of Lord Malmesbury, ii. 179). Of a quiet but intense and practical piety, he was always reserved about religious doctrine, always outspoken about the obligations of Christian duty. Vigorous as he was in action, his leading mental characteristic was caution, and his prompt action was generally the result of mature deliberation. He was masterful in temper, intolerant of discussion and debate, and though considerate and generous to a loyal and energetic subordinate, he exacted of his subordinates the same unflagging zeal and the same prompt obedience which he displayed himself to the public service and his official superiors. Blunt truthfulness was his chief moral trait. In money matters he was thrifty and shrewd. For many years he undertook the management of his brother Henry's property, and that of other members of his family, and even of mere acquaintances, and took part in the foundation of a successful bank at Delhi. His personal habits were modest and economical in the extreme, but his charities were at once wise and munificent. Hough and unconventional in manner, he was also, especially in his early years in India, as negligent and unconventional in his dress as he was in his words and bearing. Beyond the necessities of his work he was not a man of much learning or cultivation. He acquired little Latin, and no Greek, at school. Persian and Hindustani he spoke with ease, and copiously, but he knew them more in a colloquial than in a literary way. He was, however, as viceroy, able in his durbars to address the assembled chiefs in Hindustani. His despatches show that he possessed, when he needed it, a clear and nervous English style, and that on a great occasion he could find language to fit its necessities. He had ten children, four sons and six daughters, of whom the eldest son and third child, John, succeeded him in the peerage.

[The principal authorities for Lord Lawrence's life are R. Bosworth Smith's Life, which, although too eulogistic, is based on personal intimacy and on the whole of his papers, and Sir R. Temple's Life, which is also based on personal knowledge. There is an excellent sketch by Captain L. J. Trotter, and a hostile and otherwise valueless life by W. St. Clair gives a few personal details of his early life in India. See also Edwardes' and Meri vale's Life of SirH. Lawrence; Kaye's Sepoy War; W. S. Seton Karr in Edinburgh Review, April 1870; Calcutta Review, vols, xii and xxi.; G. B. Malleson's Recreations of an Indian Official, 1872; Edwin Arnold's Administration of Lord Dalhousie; Darand's Life of Sir H. Durand; Coopers Crisis in the Punjab; Shadwell's Life of Lord Clyde; Colonel Yule in Quarterly Review, April 1883; Caroline Fox's Journal, p. 238; C. Raikes's Notes on the Northwest Prorinces.]

J. A. H.

LAWRENCE, RICHARD (fl. 1643–1682), parliamentary colonel, was, according to his own statement (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1656), commissary in Manchester's army from September 1643 until the new model in 1645. He then became marshal-general of the horse for the whole English army, and filled that post until he accompanied Cromwell to Ireland. Early in 1647 he published a pamphlet, 'The Antichristian Presbyter, or Antichrist transformed and assuming the new shape of a reformed presbyter in his last and subtlest disguise to deceive the nations.' London, 9 Jan. 1646-7, 4to, by R. L., marshal-general. It is virtually a discourse on Milton's text: 'New presbyter is but old priest writ large.' Popery, in his view, is antichrist, but takes many forms. Sacerdotalism in any shape is the enemy; Prynne, Bastwick, Burton, and Lilburne, are the champions of the time. Lawrence gives a vigorous description of pluralities and other ecclesiastical abuses. A parliamentary ordinance of 25 Feb. 1650-1 approved Lord-Deputy Ireton's commission to Lawrence to raise twelve hundred men in England and to settle them on forfeited lands in and about Waterford, New Ross, and Carrick-on-Suir. Lawrence was already governor of the county of Waterford and a commissioner to raise money for the war (Ludlow, Memoirs, i. 292,