Lawrence was born on 30 December 1831, the son of Sir William Lawrence and Louisa Senior, the daughter of a successful Mayfairhaberdasher who had bought a country estate, Broughton House, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. He was educated at Winchester College and at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he took the diploma of MRCS in 1853. He then worked for nearly ten years for the Indian Medical Service. Having inherited his mother's particular love for orchids, he reinforced this when he was in India. He made his first collection when living at Dharamsala in the Himalayan foothills. On 5 July 1867, Lawrence succeeded to his father's recently created baronetcy. In 1869 he married Elizabeth, daughter of John Matthew, a partner in the leading firm of marine engineers, John Penn and Son of Greenwich. She inherited Burford Lodge, Dorking, where they created a celebrated garden at the foot of Box Hill. They had three sons and one daughter:
Aubrey Trevor Lawrence ; married Constance Emily Fanning McGaw and had issue.
Charles Trevor Lawrence ; married Adeliza Donnelly.
Bessie Mary Lawrence ; married Henry Rottenburg and had issue.
Political career
In 1874 he unsuccessfully contested Gloucester as a Conservative, but in 1875 was elected for Mid-Surrey, which included a large portion of south London. He sat for that constituency for ten years until its abolition in the redistribution of seats in 1885, when he was elected for Reigate Division in Surrey, a seat he held for seven years. He did not seek re-election at the 1892 general elections. He confined himself in parliament largely to questions and speeches on constituency matters and matters of public health. He made 20 contributions reaching Hansard, spanning 1886-8 and 1892.
Horticulture
Lawrence's chief interest, however, was horticulture, an interest he had inherited from his mother, herself a horticulturalist of note. From 1885 to 1913 he was President of the Royal Horticultural Society which increased greatly in numbers and means during this term. He was determined that it should be restored "to horticulture pure and simple", rather than entertaining the public. He was chiefly responsible for moving the Society from its expensive Kensington site to a more practical home in Westminster in 1904. The society presented him with the Victoria Medal in 1900, a portrait painted by Sir Hubert Herkomer in 1906, and the Veitch Gold Memorial Medal 1913; it also founded the Lawrence Gold Medal in his honour. He was one of the world's leading orchid collectors and asked his wife to give plants of botanical interest to Kew after his death: 580 were thought to qualify. He presided at the RHS conference on hybridisation in 1899, which is now officially regarded as the first international conference on genetics. In 1905, Professor M. Foster named a hybrid Aril Iris after him, a cross between Iris iberica X Iris pallida. Also Clematis texensis 'Sir Trevor Lawrence', Tulipa 'Sir Trevor Lawrence' and Begonia were also named after him. A genus of orchids, Trevoria, bears his name as well.
