Constituency : Stirling Burghs 1865-8
Laurence replaced James Caird at Stirling Burghs. Laurence's brief stint as an MP was arguably the least interesting aspect of his career.
Laurence's family were landed Scottish gentry but he spent his early life in Ceylon where his father was Chief Justice and has been credited with introducing tea to the island from China. In 1851 he accompanied the ruler of Nepal on his return journey from Ceylon to Katmandu and from it wrote his first travel book A Journey To Katmandu the following year. He briefly studied law in England but had the travel bug too strong and soon left for Russia producing The Russian Shores of the Black Sea in 1853. That year he began an eight year stretch as secretary to Lord Elgin helping him to negotiate the Canada Reciprocity Treaty in Washington. He also accompanied the Duke of Newcastle on a visit to the Crimea during the War. In 1861 he went to Japan as First Secretary of the British Legation but was injured in an attack on the legation by patriotic extremists and had to return home. One hand was permanently affected by injuries received.
Laurence resigned from the Diplomatic Service and was elected as a Radical Liberal. Once in Parliament he did not see eye to eye with Gladstone and instead fell under the influence of the spiritualist poet Thomas Harris and his Brotherhood of the New Life. He did not speak in the Commons.In 1868 he resigned his seat and went to their commune in Brocton, Canada where he worked as a farm labourer. However Harris did not want Laurence to withdraw from society altogether.
In 1870 Laurence published a satirical novel of London society, Piccadilly with some success and was subsequently employed by The Times as war correspondent during the Franco-German conflict. He spent some time in Paris after that where he met his first wife. They moved to Brocton in 1873 where Harris kept them separate for three years and then in 1882 , after becoming disillusioned with his guru, to Palestine where he encouraged Jewish agricultural settlement to alleviate the Jews' suffering in Eastern Europe. His friends helped recover some of his financial investment in the Brotherhood. He divided his time between organising this and writing increasingly esoteric books. In 1885 the couple both fell ill and his wife died. Laurence returned to England in 1887.
In 1888 he got married to Robert Owen's granddaughter. They had plans to return to Palestine but he fell ill again and died at Twickenham aged 59.
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