The Sun.
London, England, 1857-08-24 00:00:00

THE LATE SIR H. LAIVREYCE, K.C.B.

Sir H. M. Lawrence, whose death in a sortie
beneath the walls of Lucknow was announced in
our columns on Saturday among the Indian intel-
ligence, was a very distinguished officer, of Irish
blood and extraction, and one of whom the sister
island may feel justly proud. He was the elder
brother of Sir J. L. M. Lawrence, K.C.8., at pre-
sent Chief Commissioner of the Punjab, being the
eldest son of the late Lieut.-Col. A. W. Lawrence,
some time governor of Upnor Castle, who dictin-
guished himself by his gallantry at Seringapatain.
His mother was daughter of the late Capt. Knox,
of the county of Donegal. He was born in 1806 at
Mattura, in Ceylon, and married (in 1837) Honoria,
youngest daughter of the Rev. Geo. Marshall, of
Cardonagh, Ireland, but was left a widower in
1854. Having received his early education at the
diocesan school of Londonderry, and afterwards at
the Royal Military College, Addiscombe, he en-
tered the military service of the Hon. East India
Company in 1821, having obtained a commission as
a cadet in the Bengal Artillery. He soon acquired
the reputation of one of the most able and intelli-
gent dicers in the service, and having seen some
serviekan. the Cabul campaign under Sir G.
Pollock hi 1843, he was raised to the rank of Major.
lja•thessam-e!_year he became British Resident at
Nepaul. He afterwards played a distinguished part
in the campaigns on the Sutlej, soon after which
he was made a Military Companion of the
Bath, and at the same time promoted to the
rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. In 1846 he was ap-
pointed Resident at Lahore and agent for the Go-
vernor-General on the north-western frontier. It
was for his able services in the administration of
this important office that he was made a K.C.B.
(civil) in 1848. In the following year ho was ap-
pointed by Lord Dalhousie President of the Board
for the Reduction and Government of the recently
annexed province of the Punjaub, where he in-
creased-the high opinion already entertained of his
administrative talents by his friends and by the
Government. In 1854 he obtained the rank of full

colonel, and was also further nominated an honorary
Aide-de Camp to her Majesty, as a further recogni-
tion of his merits. He was the author of an interest-
ing volume, entitled " Adventures of an Officer in
the Service of Runjeet Singh." The ability and
firmness which he had shown in checking the pro-
gress of the recent mutiuo must be too fresh in the
memory of our readers to need repeating here. We
will only add that in Sir H. Lawrence the Indian
• service and the country have lost an officer whos3
head and hand they could ill afford to spare in the
present important crisis. But it is not only as a
soldier or as an eminent civilian that Sir H. Law-
rence will be missed, high as his character stood in
both capacities. As a frank, open, honourable, and
straightforward man, and as a generous and un-
selfish friend, he had few equals and no superior, so
that his loss will fall quite as heavily upon private
society in India, as it will upon the public service.
As an instance of his generosity, it deserves to be
recorded that for many years, drawing a
handsome revenue from his official employments,
he devoted all that he could spare of his yearly
salary to the foundation of an asylum for the or-
phan children of European soldiers, which boars his
name, and will long stind as a memorial of his
good deeds on the hills between Simla and Umbal-
lah.