John Laird Mair Lawrence

British viceroy of India

• Born: March 4, 1811
• Birthplace: Richmond, Yorkshire, England
• Died: June 27, 1879
• Place of death: London, England

One of the builders of British India, Lawrence made contributions that were crucial to the successful establishment of the administration of the Punjab and to the defeat of the great Indian mutiny of 1857.

Early Life

John Laird Mair Lawrence, the first Baron Lawrence, was the eighth of twelve children of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Lawrence. A family friend was a director of the East India Company and, in 1827, he obtained an appointment in the company’s civil service for John as he had earlier obtained military appointments for three of his brothers. At the time, instead of ruling India directly, the British government left its administration to the East India Company under a charter going back to the seventeenth century.

Lawrence spent two years in the company’s training school at Maileybury, finishing in May, 1829. He sailed for India with his brother Henry, arriving in Calcutta in February, 1830. After studying Urdu and Persian at the College of Fort William, he was posted to Delhi. For the next fourteen years he served in civil posts in the area around Delhi as a magistrate and financial officer. He worked energetically and established himself as a competent administrator.

In 1839, a severe fever, which was almost fatal, interrupted his career and sent him home on invalid leave. Returning to England in 1840, he regained his health, traveled in Ireland and on the European continent, and, in August, 1841, was married to Harriet Catherine Hamilton, the daughter of a clergyman in Donegal. Though he was again sick with fever and was warned not to return to India, he disregarded the advice with characteristic stubbornness, resuming his career in the spring of 1843. His absence had not improved his position in the civil administration, where up to this time he had progressed only modestly.

Life’s Work

In 1845, for the first time, Lawrence was able to bring his abilities to the attention of the governor-general and to make some professional progress in a substantial way. The new governor general, Lord Hardinge, had just come out to India. The British had annexed the large province of Sind and were consequently at war with the neighboring Sikhs in the Punjab. Hardinge was eager to consolidate the rather shaky British position, and he called on Lawrence to supply the army with much-needed ammunition. Lawrence’s determined energy won for him Hardinge’s approval as he organized a great convoy of bullock-drawn carts and moved enough ammunition from Delhi to secure a victory that closed the First Sikh War decisively.

Lawrence’s reward in 1846 was a post as administrator of one of the newly annexed provinces. His brother Henry, who had risen further than any of his brothers in the military service, was appointed the company’s principal resident at Lahore. During his brother’s absence from the post, Lawrence acted in his stead as the chief administrator of the entire area. In March, 1848, he held his province secure during the Second Sikh War, though he was attacked by sizable irregular forces. At the successful conclusion of the war, he urged that the entire Punjab be annexed quickly to prevent future trouble. This was done, and the highest level of administration was left to a board of three, to which Lawrence was appointed, his brother being named president.

The newly conquered Punjab, an area as large as France, had not even the rudiments of European-style administration, and all the structure of modern government, from roads to tax collection agencies, had to be created, a huge undertaking. To complicate the task, the military administrator, Sir Charles Napier, was critical of the civil administration, and the governing board could not agree within itself because Henry and John Lawrence, both men of strong views and fierce tempers, quarreled frequently. John was also attacked repeatedly by bouts of fever, which made the work no easier. At last, in 1853, the governor-general, Lord Dalhousie, while acknowledging their success, dissolved the board and made John Lawrence the chief administrator of the Punjab.

Although Lawrence cautioned the government against being drawn into the affairs of Afghanistan during the Crimean War , the government decided on a formal treaty with the emir and Lawrence was sent in March, 1855, to negotiate it. On the successful conclusion of the negotiation, he was rewarded with a knighthood. Having established a relationship with the emir, he was sent, early in 1857, to negotiate a second treaty.

Like many of the company’s senior civil servants at the time, Lawrence saw no warning of the underlying discontents that produced the great mutiny of 1857; he applied for leave from his post only a few weeks before the subcontinent erupted in the most serious challenge British authority in India ever faced.

Lawrence’s greatest moments came in the desperate danger of the weeks and months that followed. Mutineers besieged Delhi, and the Punjab was cut off. Lawrence was on his own, having to hold the province against the rebels and to mobilize its resources in suppressing the uprising elsewhere. With great coolness he collected all the reliable men he could find, striking swiftly at the mutineers and quieting much of the area. After a brief respite, he bent his efforts toward supplying the regular forces outside Delhi, seeing that that was the crucial situation. If Delhi fell, Lawrence would be unable to hold the territory, however vigorously he acted, for the whole province would rise against British rule. By August, the tide had turned and with the lifting of the siege of Delhi, the heart went out of the mutiny.

In the aftermath of the uprising, which had been crushed with great ferocity, bitterness lingered. Lawrence acted as a moderating figure, advising against further harsh reprisals, though during the fighting he had not hesitated to act with the greatest severity. Despite his own deeply evangelical temperament, he firmly opposed suggestions that the Indian administration be purged of all non-Christians, understanding that the only prudent course, if Great Britain were to continue to govern India, was to seek whatever accommodation could be made with the Indian people.

Lawrence’s health had deteriorated seriously under the strain of the mutiny, and he returned to England, amid considerable popular acclaim for his heroism. When the furor was over, he settled down to work at the India Office in London as a member of the newly created Indian Council, although he did not find it satisfying employment, for it conferred no real power. He was offered the governorship of Bombay in 1860 but declined it. In November, 1863, on the death of the viceroy, Prime MinisterLord Palmerston offered Lawrence the position, and he accepted immediately. Only once before in the century had a civil servant been offered the highest position in the Indian government. For Lawrence it was the crowning moment of his long career.

Lawrence was viceroy for five years, from January, 1864, to January, 1869. Compared with the heroic years in the Punjab, they must have been frustrating. There were no great victories to be won, only the humdrum battles of successful administration. His predecessor had allowed government expenses to outrun revenues considerably, and Lawrence undertook to redress the balance by cutting back on expenditure. Though the deficit continued throughout his administration, he was harshly criticized by official India for the constraints imposed by his parsimony.

A terrible famine developed in Orissa that Lawrence was unable to alleviate, and a war in Bhutan that he could not avoid. His long experience governing the Punjab had taught him the wisdom of caution on the northwestern frontier. He resisted firmly pressures for expansion and meddling in the affairs of Afghanistan. Again, for this reluctance, he was criticized with some rancor. In an age in which many believed fervently in the desirability of expanding the empire, his was not a popular position, however sensible. In the long term, his judgment, that the natural limits of British power in that area had been reached, was sustained by history. Afghanistan proved indigestible and remained for another century the buffer zone between Russia and India.

In January, 1869, Lawrence left office and returned home to England, where he was finally awarded his peerage. He continued to play a significant part in politics during the 1870’s as a member of the House of Lords. Though a reluctant speaker, he spoke often and to good effect, whenever the subject was India, and his judgment was respected, if not always heeded. His caution about imperial expansion meant that he often voted with the Liberals, though he was not a partisan. He was particularly active during the late 1870’s in opposing the Conservative government’s policy that led to the Afghan War of 1878-1879.

Though Lawrence kept active, serving on the boards of a number of charitable and public organizations, his health deteriorated markedly, and the onset of blindness limited what he could do. He continued to speak in the House of Lords to the end, dying only a week after his last speech, on June 27, 1879. He was buried in Westminster Abbey as a national hero.

Significance

The first Baron Lawrence played a crucial part at one of the great turning points in the history of British rule in India. That history is, for the most part, the story of a small number of British soldiers and civil administrators governing a vast subcontinent of people whose languages, cultures, and values they neither shared nor fully understood.

The consolidation and expansion of British power seemed inevitable in an age of empire, but the explosion of 1857 showed how tenuous British control in India might be if the people of India chose to resist. Lawrence understood this fact clearly. The continuation of British rule depended on Great Britain’s ability to understand the needs of India’s people and to provide for them better than the traditional system and its rulers had been able to do. Although Lawrence showed that he could be as firm, and as ruthless, as any in putting down opposition, it was his own lifelong effort to understand India sympathetically that made it possible for him to rule successfully, both in the Punjab and then over the whole British Raj. In the end, it was as much his good sense as his heroic energy and courage that accounted for that success.

Bibliography

The Cambridge History of India. 6 vols. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1922-1932. The standard work on Indian history. Despite its age, still provides a detailed overview, though the interpretation is naturally outdated.

Lee, Harold. Brothers in the Raj: The Lives of John and Henry Lawrence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. A joint biography of the two brothers, the first British administrators of the Punjab. Examines their lives, personal relationships, careers, and different approaches and disagreement over governing the Indian province.

Smith, Vincent A. The Oxford History of India. 3d ed. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1958. A good general guide to Indian history and its literature.

Spear, Perceval. India: A Modern History. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961. An excellent, concise account of Indian history.

Steele, David. “John Laird Mair Lawrence.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Lee. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. The standard biographical dictionary of British history features this brief overview of Lawrence’s life and career.

Wolpert, Stanley. A New History of India. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Study providing a general review of Indian history and incorporating much new work.

Woodruff, Philip [Philip Mason]. The Men Who Ruled India: The Founders. London: Jonathan Cape, 1953. The first volume of a two-volume work by a member of the Indian Civil Service under British rule. The third section is relevant. The focus is on individuals, but they are put nicely in context. An appreciative and sympathetic commentary on British administration in India during the early nineteenth century.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Men Who Ruled India: The Guardians. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1954. Second and concluding volume of the preceding work. The first half of the book covers 1858-1909 and, like the first volume, focuses generally on individuals. Contains much of interest about Lawrence, his brother Henry, and the conditions under which the administrators struggled to work.