Sir William Lawrence, 1st Baronet FRCS FRS (16 July 1783 – 5 July 1867) was an English surgeon who became President of the Royal College of Surgeons of London and Serjeant Surgeon to the Queen. In his mid-thirties, he published two books of his lectures which contained pre-Darwinian ideas on man's nature and, effectively, on evolution. He was forced to withdraw the second (1819) book after fierce criticism; the Lord Chancellor ruled it blasphemous. Lawrence's transition to respectability occurred gradually, and his surgical career was highly successful. In 1822, Lawrence was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.