Sir William Lawrence, 3rd Baronet

Sir William Matthew Trevor Lawrence, 3rd Baronet JP FSA (17 September 1870 – 4 January 1934) was an English horticulturalist, hospital administrator and collector.

His eldest daughter, Barbara, married Alfred Gordon Clark, a county court judge and crime writer as Cyril Hare, and his second daughter, Anne, was the mother of Rose Gray, of The River Cafe.

On returning to the UK he spent five years at Owens College, Manchester, working as a demonstrator and later an assistant lecturer in chemistry.

However succeeding in 1913 to his father's title and estate at Burford, Dorking, freed him to live a public life, especially in the fields of horticulture, medical administration, and the collection of objects of fine art.

[1] Both Lawrence's father and grandfather had been important medical figures; his grandfather, Sir William Lawrence, was a pioneering surgeon based chiefly at St Bartholomew's Hospital and Serjeant-Surgeon to Queen Victoria, and his father, Sir Trevor Lawrence MP, chaired the Central Hospital Council and was treasurer of St Bartholomew's Hospital.