Life

Born 10 October 1630, he was younger son of Sir Thomas and Ruth Lawson. He is identified as Thomas Lawson, born at Lawkland

Lawkland

Lawkland is a village and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England, near the A65 and west of Settle. It lies within the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty but was not part of the ancient Forest or the Lordship of Bowland.-References:...

, near Settle, Yorkshire, and educated at Giggleswick

Giggleswick

Giggleswick is a village and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England near the town of Settle. It is the site of Giggleswick School.-Origin of name:A Dictionary of British Place Names contains the entry:...

, who was admitted sizar of Christ's College, Cambridge

Christ's College, Cambridge

Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...

 25 July 1650 (and apparently re-admitted 21 May 1652), graduating B.A. 1655–6.

Lawson became an adept in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. He was presented in youth to the living of Rampside

Rampside

Rampside is a village in Cumbria, England, located a few miles south-east of the town of Barrow-in-Furness, in the north-western corner of Morecambe Bay on the Furness peninsula.-History:...

, then in Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

, where the inhabitants had asked in 1649 to have a parish and a ‘competent’ minister settled there. George Fox

George Fox

George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...

 visited him there in 1652, and was invited to preach in church. Lawson soon after became convinced of the unlawfulness of preaching for hire, and at twenty-three gave up his living to join the Quakers. He was not a preacher, though he was clerk to the monthly meetings for many years. He was frequently distrained upon for non-payment of tithe

Tithe

A tithe is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash, cheques, or stocks, whereas historically tithes were required and paid in kind, such as agricultural products...

, and possibly imprisoned.

Herbalist and botanist

He wrote to Margaret Fell

Margaret Fell

Margaret Fell or Margaret Fox was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends. Known popularly as the "mother of Quakerism", she is considered one of the Valiant Sixty early Quaker preachers and missionaries.-Life:...

 for money out of the general fund to buy books. She employed him to teach her daughters botany and the use of herbs as medicine. Gerard Croese called him the most noted herbalist in England. Lawson married, 24 March 1658, Frances Wilkinson, and settled at Great Strickland

Great Strickland

Great Strickland is a village and civil parish in the Eden Valley between the Cumbrian mountains in the west and the Pennines in the east. It is south east of Penrith, and is in the former county of Westmorland....

 in Westmoreland

Westmoreland

Westmoreland is a historic county in England. It may also refer to:-Places:Australia*Westmoreland County, New South WalesCanada*Westmorland County, New BrunswickJamaica*Westmoreland, Jamaica, a parishNew Zealand...

, where he took pupils from the sons of the gentry round. John Ray

John Ray

John Ray was an English naturalist, sometimes referred to as the father of English natural history. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after "having ascertained that such had been the practice of his family before him".He published important works on botany,...

, with whom he was on intimate terms, speaks of him as a ‘diligent, industrious, and skilful botanist,’ from whom he received much assistance. Lawson was asked to contribute to ‘Synopsis Methodica Insectorum,’ which Ray contemplated but did not live to complete, and Thomas Robinson in his ‘Essay towards a Natural History of Westmoreland and Cumberland’ used manuscripts supplied by Lawson's daughter. Several English plants were first noted by him, and Hieracium Lawsonii was named after him.

Death, family, legacy

Lawson died at Great Strickland 12 November 1691. His will is in the registry of Carlisle. His wife died 23 February 1691. A former pupil of Lawson erected a monument above the grave at Newby Head

Newby Head

Newby Head, Newby Head Farm or Newby Head Inn, is part of the Beresford Estate and was a popular drovers' inn in North Yorkshire, England....

, in which were deposited the remains of husband, wife, and their only son, Jonah who died, aged 14, on 23 February 1684. An engraving of it after Myles Birket Foster

Myles Birket Foster

Myles Birket Foster was a popular English illustrator, watercolour artist and engraver in the Victorian period. His name is also to be found as Myles Birkett Foster.-Life and work:...

 is in Maria Webb's The Fells of Swarthmoor Hall. Of his three daughters the eldest, Ruth, whose letters in Latin are still extant, married without her father's knowledge Christopher Yeats, one of his pupils, who took holy orders; Lawson was rebuked by the Friends for his readiness in accepting the situation.

His manuscript notes made on walking tours throughout England, giving localities of plants, and arranged under counties, came into the possession of a descendant, Lawson Thompson of Hitchin

Hitchin

Hitchin is a town in Hertfordshire, England, with an estimated population of 30,360.-History:Hitchin is first noted as the central place of the Hicce people mentioned in a 7th century document, the Tribal Hidage. The tribal name is Brittonic rather than Old English and derives from *siccā, meaning...

. To Yeats and his wife Lawson left most of his property, including all his manuscripts. Several of those were preserved at Devonshire House

Devonshire House

Devonshire House in Piccadilly was the London residence of the Dukes of Devonshire in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was built for William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire in the Palladian style, to designs by William Kent...

, and Thomas Ellwood

Thomas Ellwood

Thomas Ellwood was an English religious writer.He was born in Oxfordshire, the son of a rural squire. Educated at Lord Williams's School, he later joined the Quakers and became a friend of William Penn and John Milton. However, he was persecuted for his faith and spent some time in prison. His...

, in a letter (1 July 1698) which is among them, recommends publication.

Works

He published the following:

• (With B. Nicholson and J. Harwood) ‘A Brief Discovery of a Threefold Estate, &c.,’ 1653.
• (With John Slee) ‘An untaught Teacher Witnessed against,’ &c., 1655. Against Matthew Caffyn
  Matthew Caffyn
  Matthew Caffyn was a British General Baptist preacher and writer.-Early life:He was born at Horsham, Sussex, the seventh son of Thomas Caffin, by Elizabeth his wife...
  
  .
• ‘The Lip of Truth opened against a Dawber with untempered Morter,’ &c. Lond. 1656.
• ‘An Appeal to the Parliament concerning the Poor, that there may not be a Beggar in England,’ 1660.
• ‘Eine Antwort auf ein Buch,’ 1668.
• ‘Baptismalogia or a Treatise concerning Baptisms; whereunto is added a Discourse concerning the Supper, Bread and Wine called also Communion,’ Lond. 1677–8.
• ‘Dagon's Fall before the Ark, or the Smoak of the Bottomless Pit scoured away by the breath of the Lord's Mouth, and by the Brightness of his Coming,’ Lond. 1679.
• ‘A Mite into the Treasury, being a word to Artists, especially to Heptatechnists, the Professors of the Seven Liberal Arts, so-called Grammer, Logick, Rhetorick, Musick, Arithmetick, Geometry, Astronomy,’ Lond. 1680.
• ‘A Treatise relating to the Call, Work, and Wages of the Ministers of Christ, as also to the Call, Work, and Wages of the Ministers of Antichrist,’ 1680. These last four were reprinted in two volumes, under the title of ‘Two Treatises of Thomas Lawson deceased,’ &c., and ‘Two Treatises more,’ &c., in 1703.
• ‘A Serious Remembrancer to Live Well, written primarily to Children and Young People; secondarily to Parents, useful (I hope) for all,’ 1684.

Further reading

• E. Jean Whittaker (1986), Thomas Lawson, 1630-1691: north country botanist, Quaker, and schoolmaster

External links

• http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8312.1948.tb00501.x/abstract
• http://bound-together.org.uk/lawson.html

Attribution