British viceroy and governor-general of India whose institution in the Punjab of extensive economic, social, and political reforms earned him the sobriquet “Saviour of the Punjab.”

In 1830 Lawrence traveled to Calcutta (now Kolkata) with his brother Henry and then to Delhi, where he served for 19 years as an assistant judge, magistrate, and tax collector and where he came to oppose the oppression of the peasantry by the talukdars (tax collectors). After home leave (1840–42) he successfully organized the transport of supplies from Delhi to the Indo-British army fighting in the Punjab in the First Sikh War (1845–46). He was rewarded at age 35 with promotion to the commissionership of the newly annexed district of Jullundur. In this capacity he subdued the hill chiefs, prepared a revenue settlement, established courts and police posts, curbed female infanticide and suttee (self-destruction by widows on their husbands' funeral pyres), and trained a group of officials. He twice deputized for his brother as resident at Lahore.

Impatient with the Sikh council, Lawrence was eager to place financial reform under British control. As a member of the Punjab board of administration under Henry, after the Second Sikh War (1848–49), he made a first summary revenue settlement, abolished internal duties, introduced a uniform currency and postal system, and encouraged road and canal construction. This sort of infrastructural development was a vital component of British rule in India. To finance this work he economized, curtailing the privileges of chiefs' estates and thus coming into conflict with his brother Henry. James Ramsay, Lord Dalhousie, governor-general, dissolved the Punjab board in 1853, appointing John Lawrence chief commissioner in the executive branch.

On the outbreak of the mutiny in 1857, Lawrence restricted the sepoy (Indians employed as soldiers) battalions to the Punjab and negotiated a successful treaty with the Afghan ruler Dōst Moḥammad Khān, for which he was made a baronet and Knight Grand Cross of the Bath. After a brief visit to England, he returned to India in 1864 as a member of the civil service and was appointed viceroy and governor-general.

Lawrence sought British security in a sepoy army of divided loyalty and in the weakening of princely forces; he resisted the appointment of Indians to high civil service posts but promoted increased educational opportunities. He refrained from intervening in the succession dispute in Afghanistan after the death of Amīr Dōst Moḥammad in 1863, rejected entanglements in the affairs of Arabia and the Persian Gulf, and recognized any chief who secured power. He was created Baron Lawrence of the Punjab and of Grately, Hampshire, after his return to England in 1869.