Career
The Lawson Tama Stadium in the capital Honiara is named after him. Lawson arrived in the British Solomon Islands in 1947 to manage the governmental Trade Scheme, later the British Solomons Trading Company. He went onto become manager of a copra plantation in the Russell Islands for the Fairymead Sugar Company, before starting his own company, East. V. Lawson Proprietary
In 1961 Lawson called a meeting at the Rove sports ground to discuss sporting facilities in the territory, which led to the establishment of the British Solomon Islands Amateur Sports Association, with Lawson as president
The government allowed the creation of the Town Sports Ground. Due to Lawson"s heavy involvement in its establishment, it was later renamed the Lawson Tama Stadium.
Constitutional reforms in 1964 led to the creation of eight elected seats on the Legislative Council, but only the Honiara seat was directly elected, with the remainder elected by electoral colleges composed of local councillors. In June 1965 Lawson and North Malaita Member of Parliament Mariano Kelesi established the Democratic Party in an attempt to gain support for forming a government.
Kelesi became party president and Lawson was secretary.
However, it ceased to exist when an executive was formed. Lawson left the Legislative Council in 1966 and Honiara town council in 1969. He moved to Brisbane when he retired in 1974, at which point his company was taken over by C Sullivan Export.
He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for "services to the community".
