Richard Lawson was educated at Warrnambool Grammar School, where he won an exhibition to attend the Universitry of Melbourne. There he gained a BA in 1895, and then an MA. He earned the degree of Litt.D. (1922) from the same University with a thesis entitled 'Classical Translation into English, 1550-1750'. In the early years of the twentieth century he helped found and taught at the Warrnambool Academy, a school for boys. A fellow teacher at the school was Emile Louis Meyrat (q.v.) who co-authored with him Poems by Two Friends (1909). In 1913 Lawson was appointed lecturer at Melbourne Teachers' College. The appointment of Foundation Professor of Education at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, followed in 1923, a position he held until his retirement in 1945. He returned to Melbourne for a time, but spent his last years in Dunedin.
