He was born at Woods Point to gold miner Robert Rawson and Ellen Smith.
From the age of fourteen, he was employed in a Melbourne warehouse, and in 1916 he campaigned against military conscription.
In April 1925 he married schoolteacher Florence Elizabeth Mitchell, with whom he had one son, political scientist, Don Rawson.
[1] From 1927 he owned his bookshop in Exhibition Street, where he also ran the headquarters of the Book Censorship Abolition League (1934–36) and subsequently the Australian Council for Civil Liberties.
He moved to Upwey in 1951, where he became vice-president of the local Labor Party branch.