to preach in the church with the consent of all concerned. The incident, with much exaggeration, was reported in the House of Commons, and with some others of a similar nature was made the occasion of a petition to the king from the commons, for a proclamation against papists and nonconformists (18 Feb. 1667–8), which was issued accordingly. In May 1670, when living at Whitchurch, and preaching one Sunday afternoon at the house of a neighbour, to his family and four friends, he was arrested by Dr. Fowler, the minister of Whitchurch, under the Conventicle Act. Lawrence and four others were fined, and distress was levied upon their goods (see 2nd letter, ib., pp. 23–24). This affair caused the removal of Lawrence with his family to London in May 1671, where he remained till his death in November 1695, preaching in his meetinghouse near the Royal Exchange and elsewhere, and walking 'the streets with freedom' (Williams, Matthew Henry, p. 28).
The Baschurch parish register records the baptisms of eight children of Edward and Deborah Lawrence, between 1649 and 1661, and the burial of Lawrence's mother in 1663. His son Nathaniel, born 28 April 1670, became nonconformist minister at Banbury. The conduct of two of his children caused him great pain, and made him, as he himself expressed it, to be 'the Father of fools' (Lawrence, Parents' Groans, dedication). His nephew was Samuel Lawrence of Nantwich [q. v.]
He was much loved and respected. He is often mentioned in Philip Henry's diary. Nathaniel Vincent, who preached his funeral sermon, gives a beautiful character of him, to which Philip Henry bears testimony (M. Henry, Life of P. Henry, edit. 1765, p. 297). He was troubled at the divisions of the church, being 'stiffly for no party, very moderate towards all' (Vincent, Perfect Man, p. 19).
He published: 1. 'Christ's Power over Bodily Diseases,' preached in several sermons on Matt. viii. 5-13, London, 1662; 2nd edit. 1672. Richard Baxter wrote a preface in 1661 (Reliq. Bax. i. 122). 2. 'There is no Transubstantiation in the Lord's Supper,' delivered as a morning lecture at Southwark, and published as Sermon xxi. in 'The Morning Exercise against Popery' (cf. edition by James Nichols, 1845, vol. vi.), first issued by Nathaniel Vincent, London, 1675. An abstract of the sermon, with a notice of Lawrence, is in Dunn's 'Seventy-five Eminent Divines,' pp. 222-3. 3. 'Parents' Groans over their Wicked Children,' several sermons on Prov. xvii. 25, London, 1681. 4. Two funeral sermons on the 'Use and Happiness of Human Bodies,' London, 1690.
[Admission Registers of Magd. Coll. Cambr., communicated by the Hon. and Rev. Latimer Neville; Cambr. Univ. Reg. by the Rev. H. R. Luard, D.D.; Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, iii. 139; Conformist's Plea for the Non-conformists, p. 11; Parl. Hist. iv. 413; Matthew Henry's Life of Philip Henry, p. 135; Lee's Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry, pp. 227-31; Sylvester's Reliquiae Baxterianæ, pt. iii. p. 94; Tong's Matthew Henry, p. 91; Hunter's Britannia Puritanica, Addit. MS. 24484, p. 325; Morrice MS. J. in Dr. Williams's Library; Palatine Notebook, ii. 96; Baschurch parish register, communicated by the Rev. T. J. Rider.]
LAWRENCE, FREDERICK (1821–1867), barrister and journalist, eldest son of John Lawrence, a considerable farmer at Bisham, Berkshire, who married Mary, daughter of John Jennings of Windsor, was born at Bisham in 1821. After being educated in a private school at St. John's Wood, London, he found employment with Messrs. Simpkin & Marshall, the publishers. In December 1846 he entered the printed book department of the British Museum, following the example of his friend, afterwards the well-known Serjeant Parry, and remained there in the task of compiling the general catalogue until May 1849, when, like Parry, he resigned, in order to qualify for the bar. He was called at the Middle Temple on 23 Nov. 1849, joined the Oxford circuit, and attended the Berkshire sessions, but subsequently practised with some success at the Middlesex Sessions and the Old Bailey. Lawrence frequently contributed to the periodical press, especially to the 'Weekly Dispatch' and 'Sharped London Journal,' to the last of which he contributed a series of articles on 'literary impostures' and on eminent English authors.
Social and political questions always interested him, and he acted as chairman of the Garibaldian Committee. While at Boulogne in the autumn of 1867 he was attacked by dropsy, which compelled him to return to London, and on 25 Oct. 1867 he died suddenly at his chambers, 1 Essex Court, Temple. He was buried at Kensal Green cemetery.
Lawrence is said to have edited at Guildford in 1841 three numbers, seventy-two pages in all, of 'The Iris, a Journal of Literature and Science.' He was author of: 1. 'The Common Law Procedure Act, 1852, with an Introduction' 1852. 2. 'The Life of Henry Fielding, with Notices of his Writings, his Times, and his Contemporaries,' 1855, a work of great research and taste, the
