Edward Lawrence (merchant)

He dealt in cotton and was a major figure of the British merchants' effort to circumvent the Union blockade of exports from the Confederate states.

Returning to Liverpool, he went into business on his own account, setting up Edward Lawrence & Co. and trading with Bombay.

[3] It commissioned the blockade runner Wild Dayrell under Captain Thomas Cubbins, which was destroyed in 1864 by USS Sassacus off North Carolina.

He pursued a claim related to the Night Hawk with William H. Seward, through the diplomat Joseph Hume Burnley.

[11] An obituary stated that as well as being "chairman of the Liverpool Gas Company, and director of many leading concerns" he took "a keen interest in the Royal Albert Asylum at Lancaster, of which he was one of the founders".

After it was set up, with Waterhouse as architect from 1878, he chaired from 1881 the initial Council of Governors that ran it, with Charles Beard as vice-chair.

[21] Edward Lawrence & Co. had an interest in an estate near Jugra, Malaya, floated as a limited company in 1900, producing coffee, cocoanuts and rubber when ramie proved not to have commercial value.