# George Hill Mathewson Lawrence

George Hill Mathewson Lawrence (June 19, 1910 - June 10, 1978) was an American botanist, writer and professor of botany who helped establish the 'Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium', the Hunt Botanical Library and the Huntia journal. He was also an avid book collector, including books on the history of Rhode Island, historic books and botanical art.

## Biography

George Hill Mathewson Lawrence was born in East Greenwich, Rhode Island on June 19, 1910. His parents were Dana Lawrence, and Anna (Mathewson) Lawrence (or Anna M. Mathewson).
He attended and graduated from Lockwood High School (formerly the James T. Lockwood High School,) in Warwick in 1928. He then attended Rhode Island State College, and achieved a Bachelor of Science degree in 1932 and then Master of Science degree in 1933.
In 1934, he married Miriam Boothby of Westbrook, Maine.
He was superintendent of greenhouses and grounds at Rhode Island State Hospital between 1934 and 1936.
Lawrence left Rhode Island to study for his doctorate at Cornell University, (in Ithaca, New York,).
Lawrence was also a dedicated plant taxonomist and had studied Armeria (commonly known as Sea pinks), in addition to other plants.
At Cornell, he became a student of the renowned botanist/ horticulturalist Liberty Hyde Bailey, he then received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in botany in 1939. Previously in 1935, Liberty Bailey had given his herbarium (consisting of 125,000 sheets), a building and his library of books (consisting over 3,000 books) to Cornell University. This became the basis for the 'Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium'. Bailey was its unsalaried director, his daughter Ethel Bailey was the curator.
After receiving the doctorate, Lawrence remained as Bailey's assistant in the Bailey Hortorium (within the university) until World War II started in 1943. He then enlisted in the US Navy.
After the war, in 1946, Lawrence returned to Cornell and the Bailey Hortorium becoming a professor of botany.
On 1 December 1949, Lawrence also helped to prepare the revised edition of Manual of Cultivated Plants with Liberty Hyde Bailey.
When Bailey retired in 1951, Lawrence was named Director of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium, and in that same year, he published his seminal botany textbook, 'Taxonomy of Vascular Plants'. It is still a standard text for students of systematic botany. It was reprinted in 2012.
During the mid-1950s. Lawrence travelled to England. While he was away, he kept a close correspondence with Dr. Bailey and the Hortorium staff. These letters are among the Lawrence Papers stored in 'Special Collections' at Cornell.
In 1952, Lawrence also received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Rhode Island State College (then the University of Rhode Island).
In 1954, he assumed the editorship of the Bailey Hortorium journal, Baileya, a quarterly journal of horticultural taxonomy. He also he wrote "Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858-1954); An Appreciation" in 'Baileya' Vol.3 Issue 1, page 26–40 in 1954.
In 1954, he was given a Guggenheim Fellowship Award, in the field of Plant Sciences.
In 1954, Lawrence also managed the transition of the Bailey Hortorium from its previous home at Sage Place to its new facilities in Mann Library. It provided the Hortorium with a centrally located space on the university campus.
Lawrence was also in correspondence with botanist and plant explorer David Fairchild (1869 – 1954) and the American philanthropist, Barbour Lathrop (1847 - 1927). Lawrence had contributed many articles to the Hortorium's journals, 'Baileya' and 'Gentes Herbarum'. Including; Lawrence, G.H.M. 1956. The Bailey Hortorium, its past and present. Baileya 4(1):1-9. Also published and described Lapeirousia denticulata (Lam.) G.H.M.Lawr. in Baileya 3: 134 in 1955. Which is now classed as a synonym of Lapeirousia fabricii subsp. fabricii.
In 1955, Lawrence was also the author of another standard textbook on botany: 'Introduction to Plant Taxonomy',Macmillan, 179 pages.
In 1960, Lawrence left the Bailey Hortorium, (after 21 years of being a student and teacher) to assume the position of director of the newly established Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt Botanical Library at the then Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania, (now Carnegie Mellon University). With the collection of Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt (of the American Aluminum Company (Alcoa) Hunts) as its major cornerstone, Lawrence started developing the Hunt Botanical Library.
One of his major accomplishments as director, was the acquisition for the library of a 4000 item collection of Linnaeus materials from the private library of Dr. Birger Strandell of Sweden, who was a direct descendant of Carl Linnaeus. In the ten years after its acquisition, the Linnaeana collection had doubled in size.
On 7 December 1963, he presented a paper at a symposium held at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, in L.A., titled 'Herbals, their history and significance'.
He was editor of 'Adanson; the bicentennial of Michel Adanson's Families de plantes', published by Hunt Botanical Library, between 1963 and 1964, produced in 2 volumes.
In 1964, Lawrence established Huntia, the institute's scholarly journal of botanical history. The journal was published irregularly in one or more numbers per volume of approximately 200 pages by Hunt Institute. Volumes 1 to 7, was issued in 14 volumes, large octavo (folded paper) they were paperback apart from Volume 2 which was clothbound. Then in 'Huntia' Vol.1, pages 162–165 in 1964, Lawrence wrote an article, The botanical significance of letters and manuscripts'.
In 1968, "Botanico-Periodicum-Huntianum" was also published by George H. M. Lawrence and others as editors. Pittsburgh, Pa., Hunt Botanical Library.
Lawrence had become 'director emeritus' of the Bailey Hortorium before he retired in 1970, this was due in part to ill health.
In 1971, Lawrence also taught tropical botany at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.
Lawrence then returned to his native Rhode Island but he remained on the staff of the Hunt Botanical as a Research Associate and Consultant, however, in order to complete an annotated catalogue of its Linnaeus collection. Working with the donor of the collection, Dr. Birger Strandell, Lawrence devoted the remaining seven and one half years of his life to the completion of the Linnaeus Catalogue. Due to many problems, including several with its computer generated format, the Catalogue was never completed and is still being worked on. The Strandell Collection was open in 1976 to view, as completed by director Gilbert S. Daniels, who published papers in Taxon (journal) in 1976.
Lawrence was also a student of local history and an avid bibliophile and collector of rare books.
Lawrence was a member of the URI (University of Rhode Island) Century Club and a trustee of the URI Foundation and Chairman of the Foundation's Campus Beautification Committee. In 1977, he had compiled a pamphlet detailing statistics and accomplishments of the class of 1934 for its 45th reunion.
Lawrence was named a fellow of the Linnean Society of London in May 1978.
George Lawrence died in Kent County Memorial Hospital in Warwick, R.I., at the age of 67. on 10 June 1978, not long after returning from a trip to London and Uppsala in connection with the Linnean bicentennial commemorations, on the 200th anniversary of the death of Linnaeus.
He was survived in 1978 by his wife, Miriam, a son, a daughter, a brother, sister and seven grandchildren.
He had gathered a large library of botanical works, general rare books, and books of Rhode Island history stored at his East Greenwich home. Many of these books, in particular those on Rhode Island history, were donated to the University of Rhode Island Library by his widow, Miriam Lawrence. This donation broadened both the Library's Rhode Island Collection and its rare book collection.
The bulk of his professional papers are housed in the Archives of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation (formerly the Hunt Botanical Library) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and also at the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
He was a Foreign Honorary Fellow of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. and he was a member of the American Horticultural Society, Garden History Society, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and the Planting Fields Foundation, New York.