Author: Lawson, John
Biography:
Lawson, John (1787-1825: WBIS)
The names of his parents are not recorded, but he was born in Trowbridge and sent to London in 1803 as an apprentice to a wood engraver. In 1806 he joined the Baptist Church; in 1810--the year of the publication of his first poem, The Maniac--he was approved as a missionary to India. He married Frances Butterworth in 1810 before leaving England. (She and eight children survived him.) They travelled westward to India; delays on the journey meant that they spent two years in Philadelphia, where he preached and made contacts. His first posting was to Serampore, where he learnt to make type for Chinese characters and was active in the missionary printing office, but he moved on to Calcutta, where he was ordained in 1816 and became co-pastor of the Lal Bazar Chapel. In Calcutta, besides attending to pastoral duties, he set up a print shop, taught in a girls' school, and published several volumes of verse. He is said to have died of "inflammation of the liver." After his death, more of his original hymns were published as The Calcutta Melodies (1844). ("Memoir of Rev. John Lawson," American Baptist Magazine 7 [1827] 5-11, 33-7; Mary Ellis Gibson, ed., Anglophone Poetry in Colonial India 1780-1913 [2011] 105-13)
Other Names:
- J. Lawson