Thomas George Lawson was born in October 1814 in New London in Little Popo, which is Togo.He is the second son of George Acquatey Lawson. His mother was a member of the royal familyin Awana. He was sent to England at 11 years old for education. He was entrusted to an Englishmerchant and then placed under the care of John McCormack. McCormack was Thomas’s patron,and he wanted Thomas to receive a good education in the colonial school system. When Thomasfinished school, he was employed as an agent and interpreter in McCormack’s timber company.McCormack used Lawson as his interpreter and personal representative on his missions for thecolony administration. This started his long career as an interpreter.
In one of his visits to Koya, which is located in Erbil. He met Sarian, who was agranddaughter of the Nem Ghana of the kingdom, which is a city in Accra, Ghana. ThomasGeorge and Sarian had five children. The eldest was William Thomas George Lawson, who wasborn around 1840. He later followed his father’s footsteps and was appointed to the colonialservice.
Thomas’s second son was Moses Thomas George Lawson. He was born in the late 1850s.He became a pastor of the church of God, a small American Baptist church. In May 1886, MosesLawson married Miss Luretica, a daughter of the Reverend J. During the Niger mission.3Thomas George Lawson’s youngest child was Catherine Sarah Ann. She was educated atAnnie Walsh Memorial School. On July 6, 1887, she married Nicholas J. Spain, the youngerbrother of the colony’s postmaster, J.H. Spain. This was a very influential wedding of twopolitically active Freetown families that attracted most of the elite colony. There were otherchildren in Lawson’s family, but information about them is scarce. The second eldest son wasnamed Thomas George, named after his father. He died in March 1897. Thomas also lost adaughter in October 1878. Thomas George Lawson and his family were members of the Africanelite in Sierra Leone. They played important roles in the social, administrative, and religious affairsof the colony.
Thomas worked for John McCormack as a personal interpreter until 1846. Thomasaccompanied him on numerous trade and official government missions. Thomas excelled in his jobso much so that his boss McCormack convinced Sierra Leone’s Governor MacDonald to hire himas the governor’s advisor and interpreter for meeting with African rulers. In 1846, GovernorMacdonald began to use Thomas Lawson as his personal messenger to Port Loko’s rulers and toother African territories. Between 1846 and 1851, Lawson proved his value to the colonialadministration, and in 1851, Governor Macdonald proposed to employ him as the first official government messenger and interpreter in the colonial secretary’s office at $100 per year 4Appointed Government Interpreter in 1852, he acted as a liaison between the colonial governmentand the rulers of the surrounding countries. From 1854 until the end of 1860, he also served as aninspector of the police, and from January 1, 1861, he carried the title of government interpreter.After 1872, he was the head of a developing African bureau, and in 1878 he became the protectorof government guest Lawson’s evaluation of the importance of Muslim communities for thedevelopment of British interests was in accordance with the ideas of the Colonial Office, SierraLeone officials, and a few Europeans.
He helped people realize that long-distance and local tradenetworks could only be maintained with the help of Muslim caravan organizers, merchants,landlords, and religious authorities in the colony. He was highly regarded and trusted by both theMuslim communities and colonial governors. This allowed him to mediate disputes, to facilitatethe growth of trade, and to expand British influence beyond the colony. Thomas was the head ofthe Native Affairs Department and was once sent by the British government to negotiate a peacefulconflict dealing with the "new Spartacus" but failed.6Thomas George Lawson retired from colonial service in 1888. His ending salary was $350 per year. He received compensation foraiding African ambassadors in Freetown.
Thomas George Lawson was highly praised in his career and left his mark in severaldifferent aspects. In the forty-three years that he worked, from January 1846 to January 1889,Thomas wrote countless reports, letters, and memoranda. These tens of thousands of pages hasprovided scholars with valuable data about many aspects of political, social, and economic affairsin Guinea and Sierra Leone.
He had intimate familiarity with nearby small states, notably Koya, Port Loko, KafuBullom, Loko Masama, Marampa, and Masimera; but he also had dealings with merchants andleaders further north and in the Sherbro territory to the south.His connections with these statesand their rulers helped him establish strong ties and made him and his family very influentialpeople.
Thomas Lawson used his position as government interpreter to create a staff of assistantsand Arabic letter writers that provided governors with intelligence about “native affairs” andhelped to build British influence in what became the Protectorate of Sierra Leone. He and his ablestaff, some of whom were Muslim, produced thousands of pages of reports for consideration bycolonial officials. He also created the colony’s Foreign Affairs Bureau, which dealt with important issues indiplomatic, economic, cultural, and military relations with interior states; and he met with Africandelegations and arranged for their accommodation in the colony. He collected a vast array ofinformation about African societies in personal reports to the governors. These reports and letters to and from African notables were recorded in the Government Interpreter’s Letter Books, in the Arabic Letter Books, and in other documents now in the Sierra Leone National Archive.