Nicholas Lawes

Sir Nicholas Lawes ( – 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 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 John Massey, John Rackham, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Robert Deal, Joseph Thompson, Nicholas Brown (with a reward paid to smuggler John Drudge for Brown's head), 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. In 1706, he presented an engraved brass chandelier to St Andrew Parish Church, in Kingston, which still hangs in the church today.

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

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 Countess of Carhampton, both wife and mother of the Earls of Carhampton and also mother of Anne, Duchess of Cumberland and Strathearn who married Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn, brother to King George III. 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.