Harry John Lawson

Lawson was born on 23 February 1852, in the City of London, the son of Thomas Lawson, a Calvinistic Methodist minister and brass turner, and his wife Anne Lucy Kent.

In 1873, the family moved to Brighton and Lawson designed several types of bicycle. His efforts were described as the "first authentic design of safety bicycle employing chain-drive to the rear wheel which was actually made" and he has been ranked alongside John Kemp Starley as an inventor of the modern bicycle.

In 1879, he married Elizabeth Olliver (b.1850) in Brighton. They had four children, two sons and two daughters.

In the early 1880s he moved to Coventry.

Many of Lawson's patents were not as defining as he had hoped and, from 1901, a series of legal cases saw the value in his holdings shrink. Lawson's patent rights were subsequently eroded through successful lawsuits by the Automobile Mutual Protective Association. In 1904, Lawson, along with Ernest Terah Hooley, was tried in court for fraudulently obtaining money from his shareholders and, after representing himself in court, he was found guilty and sentenced to one year's hard labour.

Lawson was completely out of the automobile industry by 1908 and disappeared from the public gaze for some years. He reappeared as a director of Blériot Manufacturing Aircraft Company Ltd., the English branch of Louis Blériot's aircraft company. Lawson secretly acquired control of the company just before a public subscription, to help expand its efforts during the First World War, but the company soon found itself in breach of its contract with Blériot. When that came to light, the company was wound up and its director found guilty of fraud and dishonesty.

In March 1916, Lawson survived being torpedoed on the ferry "Sussex" while crossing the English Channel.

Lawson retired from the public gaze and died at his home in Harrow, London on 12 July 1925 aged 73. After his death, Herbert Osbaldeston Duncan, former Commercial Manager of his British Motor Syndicate, described him thus: "He was neither a greedy man nor an egoist. On the contrary he was always fair and extremely generous. He paid largely and was most liberal in the golden days of his success. A cheque was always ready to be handed over with a kindly smile to friends who assisted him with his dealings or company-promoting schemes. Lawson was a clever man. Perhaps his greatest misfortune was in not being supported properly in his business by others equally intelligent." (Duncan, Herbert Osbaldeston The World on Wheels, thrilling true tales of the Cycle & Automobile Industry, vol 2. Self-published, 1926)