William Lawson

William Lawson (about 1554 to 1635) was an English cleric, a graduate of Christ Church, Oxford, and vicar of Ormesby in the North Riding of Yorkshire from 1583, who is known as a writer on gardening. His two-part work A New Orchard and Garden, printed in London in 1618 and dedicated to Sir Henry Belasyse, set out the best way of planting, grafting and making any ground good for a rich orchard, with particular attention to the north of England; its second part, The Countrie Housewifes Garden, bears the date 1617. He claimed the book was the result of 48 years of his own experience and observation. An edition of 1622 added a chapter by Simon Harward on propagating plants, and the work was combined with Gervase Markham's A Way to Get Wealth and reprinted into the 1680s. He also annotated the 1620 second edition of John Dennys's The Secrets of Angling.