Nicholas Lawes

Sir Nicholas Lawes (c. 1652 – 18 June 1731) was a British judge and colonial administrator who served as the governor of Jamaica from 1718 to 1722.

Early life

Nicholas Lawes was born c. 1652 to Nicholas and Amy Lawes. He was a British knight.

Governor of Jamaica

He was Chief Justice of Jamaica from 1698 to 1703 and Governor from 1718 to 1722.

In his capacity as Governor during the Golden Age of Piracy he hunted down or tried many pirates, among them "Calico Jack" Rackham, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Robert Deal, Captain Thompson, Nicholas Brown, and Charles Vane. He signed an arrangement with Jeremy, king of the Miskito, to bring some of his followers over to Jamaica to hunt down runaway slaves and Jamaican Maroons in 1720.

Family

Lawes married five widows in succession. No children survived from the first three marriages.

James and Temple Lawes were the sons of his fourth wife Susannah Temple whom he married in 1698. She had previously been married to Samuel Bernard. Her father, Thomas Temple, is said to have given Lawes his Temple Hall, Jamaica estate as a dowry.

Lawes later married Elizabeth Lawley (1690-1725), widow of Thomas Cotton, and daughter of Sir Thomas Lawley, 3rd Baronet and his first wife Rebecca Winch, daughter of Sir Humphrey Winch, 1st Baronet. Their youngest surviving daughter, Judith Maria Lawes, married Simon Luttrell, 1st Earl of Carhampton and so became both wife and mother of the Earls of Carhampton and mother of Anne, Duchess of Cumberland and Strathearn.

Coffee and printing

At Temple Hall Lawes experimented with a variety of crops and introduced the very lucrative coffee growing into the island in 1721 according to some sources or 1728 according to others.

He is also credited with setting up the first printing press in Jamaica.

Death

He died on 18 June 1731 in Jamaica.

References

1. Lawes
2. Calico Jack
3. John Bennet Lawes
4. Anne Horton
5. Anne Bonny
6. Nicholas II
7. Peter Heywood (governor)
8. Henry Luttrell, 2nd Earl of Carhampton
9. Jonathan Barnet
10. Nicky Law (footballer, born 1988)
11. Coffee production in Jamaica
12. Elizabeth Home, Countess of Home
13. Jeremy II
14. Sir Thomas Lawley, 3rd Baronet
15. 1717–1718 Acts of Grace
16. Simon Luttrell, 1st Earl of Carhampton
17. Joseph Thompson (pirate)
18. Capture of John "Calico Jack" Rackham
19. Peter Beckford (junior)
20. List of governors of Jamaica