Lawrence Arthur Adamson, CMG, (20 April 1860 – 14 December 1932) was a schoolmaster of Wesley College, Melbourne, Australia, and is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential in the nation's educational history.

The case was smothered, but he was forced to emigrate to Australia,[4] with the cover story that a bad attack of pleurisy required immediate relocation to a warmer climate.

Adamson arrived to practise at the Sydney Bar in December 1885, but finding its summer humidity uncongenial, he moved to Melbourne.

He also became sports master and chairman of the games committee, and, with James Cuthbertson of Geelong Grammar School, helped to frame a code of rules for inter-school athletics.

He advocated good manners with pithy illustrations on the effect of them, he instilled a sense of honour, he believed in hero-worship, but all the while he was mindful of practical things.

This by no means exhausts the list of committees on which he served but none of these interfered with his work as headmaster, which went steadily on until a long illness led to his retirement in October 1932.

He made no special claim to scholarship, he was far too busy to be able to give much time to studies, but he liked to take a class and he got to know the many generations of boys who passed through his hands.

Adamson could still delight in stories like Treasure Island and A Gentleman of France, and he could read Rudyard Kipling's Stalky & Co. with an appreciation granted to few schoolmasters.