Lawson, Abercrombie Anstruther

Born: 13 September 1870, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (Lawson says in his application for the Chair, 14 September 1874; other sources say he was born in Scotland; his brother, Andrew Cowper Lawson, sometime Professor of Geology and Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, was born in Anstruther, Scotland on 25 July 1861 and moved with his parents to Canada in his sixth year according to a University of California obituary).
Died: 26 March 1927, post-operative complications, St Lukes Hospital, Sydney
Family: Father William Lawson, sailor and shipyard worker; Mother, Janet (Jessie) Kerr, nee Coupar, (novelist and journalist, supported family by this means when her husbands health failed) (10 children)
Married: Never married
Education:
Harbord Street Collegiate Institute, Toronto, Canada
1894 (?) University of Toronto
1895 University of Glasgow (enrolled in Medicine but changed to Biological Sciences after 1st year, then postponed studies because of ill health)
1897 BSc (California)
1898 MSc (California)
1901 PhD (Chicago)
1910 DSc (Glasgow)
1926 DSc ad eundem (Adelaide)

Career:
1866 Parents migrated from Fifeshire, Scotland to Hamilton, Canada
1881 Moved to Toronto
1898 Accompanied Professor W.L. Jepson into the Sierra Nevada Mountains
1899 With Professor W.L. Jepson and Professor W.A. Setchell to the Aleutian Islands
1901 Assistant in Botany, University of Chicago
1902 Botany expedition to the Coast Range Mountains of California
1903 Taught summer classes, Hopkins Marine Biological Laboratory, Pacific Grove
Assistant in Botany, University of California (1 year)
Assistant in Botany, Stanford University (1 year)
Instructor in Botany, Stanford University (2 years)
Assistant Professor of Botany, Stanford University (2 years)
1907 Lecturer in Botany, Glasgow University (5 years)
Summers spent on Botanical expeditions
1 year visiting European botanical institutions
1910 Special Lecturer, University of London
1913 to 1927 Foundation Professor of Botany, University of Sydney
1916 to 1918 Winner Makdougall-Brisbane Prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
1923 Visited Canadian universities
1925 New Botany Building attached to the Macleay Museum completed (largely designed to Lawson's specifications)
1927 Part of movement which resulted in the passing of the Wildflowers and Native Plants Protection Act; died before his election to the Royal Society, London was confirmed
Fellow, Linnean Societies of London and New South Wales; Royal Society of Edinburgh
Bequeathed to the University of Sydney the set of 1000 lantern slides he had used in his lectures

Also:
Lawson's brother, Andrew Cowper Lawson (1861 1952), was Professor of Geology and Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley; another of his brothers, James Kerr-Lawson, was a portrait painter in London

A.A. Lawson's portrait held by the Department of Botany, University of Sydney