Thomas Lawrence was an English physician and biographer, who became President of the Royal College of Physicians in 1767.
Background
The second son of Captain Thomas Lawrence, Registered Nurse, by Elizabeth, daughter of Gabriel Soulden of Kinsale, and widow of a Colonel Piers, Lawrence was born in the parish of Saint Margaret, Westminster, on 25 May 1711. He was grandson of another Doctor Thomas Lawrence (died 1714), a royal physician who was nephew of Henry Lawrence. Accompanying his father when appointed to the Irish station about 1715, he was for a time at school in Dublin.
His mother died in 1724, and his father then left the navy and settled with his family at Southampton.
Education
He attended Southampton grammar school, and in October 1727 was entered Trinity College, Oxford as a commoner. He graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1730, and Master of Arts Lawrence chose medicine as profession, and moved to London, where he attended the anatomical lectures of Doctor Frank Nicholls, and the practice of Saint Thomas"s Hospital. He graduated Bachelor of Medicine at Oxford, 1736, Doctor of Medicine
Career
In 1733. 1740, and succeeded Nicholls as anatomical reader in the university, but resided in London, where he also delivered anatomical lectures. Admitted a candidate of the London College of Physicians in 1743, Lawrence was a fellow in 1744. After filling a number of college offices he was elected president in 1767, and was annually re-elected for seven consecutive years.
After 1750, finding he had competition from William Hunter, he abandoned his lectures, and concentrated on medical practice, without great success.
About 1773 Lawrence"s health began to fail, and he first perceived symptoms of angina pectoris, which continued. In 1782 he had an attack of paralysis, and in the same year moved from London to Canterbury, where he died on 6 June 1783.
He was buried in Saint Margaret"s Church, and a tablet, with a Latin epitaph, was placed in Canterbury Cathedral. Sir Soulden Lawrence was one of the sons.
Lawrence had met Johnson through Richard Bathurst.