Background
Returning to England, he trained as a lawyer and married Charlotte Myers Street Clair, daughter of a colonel in the Royal Artillery.
Returning to England, he trained as a lawyer and married Charlotte Myers Street Clair, daughter of a colonel in the Royal Artillery.
After three years at school, Peterson ran away to sea, working at a salt works in India. In 1846 he left to practice law at the Supreme Court in Calcutta. Retiring in the 1870s, he bought land near Sway, Hampshire, building and extending his house, Arnewood Towers, "from a small villa into a commodious country residence of somewhere near forty rooms, with the necessary outbuildings, built entirely of concrete".
In late 1877 Lawrence also served as the channel for "Spiritual drawings" from William Blake and Henry Fuseli.
Sir Christopher Wren, through Lawrence, directed Peterson to build a large concrete tower in Sway: foundation work began in 1879, and in 1886 the tower was completed, at a height of 218 feet and a cost of £30,000. lieutenant remains the world"s tallest non-reinforced concrete structure.
