Charles B. Lawson

Biography

Charles B. Lawson was born in Brooklyn, New York, on February 6, 1855, and educated in the public schools. He entered the piano industry in 1875 with Billings and Wheelock, at 14 East Fourteenth Street, New York. When that firm dissolved in 1877, Lawson joined William E. Wheelock in manufacturing the Wheelock piano, becoming a partner in William E. Wheelock and Company in 1880. He remained with the firm until its 1896 merger with the Weber Piano Company, where he became vice-president in full charge of all factories, continuing when Weber merged into the Aeolian combination in 1903. He served as an Aeolian director until 1906, when he organized the co-partnership of Lawson and Company with his two sons and George A. Griffin to manufacture the Lawson piano. Lawson was a business partner of William E. Wheelock. In 1892, together with Wheelock and fellow partner John W. Mason, he helped organize the Weber Piano Company after their group acquired the business of the late Albert Weber, contributing to a combined enterprise offering the Weber, Wheelock, and Stuyvesant piano lines at multiple price points under shared management. From Spillane (1890): Charles B. Lawson was an active partner in William E. Wheelock & Company, entering the firm in 1880 and sharing full reciprocity with William E. Wheelock in its government and policy thereafter. A native of Brooklyn, he received a good early education and some mercantile experience before joining Wheelock & Company as confidential bookkeeper at its founding. He quickly became conversant with the firm's business details and, having a scientific and mechanical bent of mind, acquired practical knowledge of several departments of piano structure sufficient to judge efficient work from bad work. He was noted for a strong mathematical mind capable of calculating every exacting detail familiar to a large piano manufacturer.

Highlights

• Partnered with William E. Wheelock and John W. Mason to organize the Weber Piano Company in 1892
• Born in Brooklyn, New York, February 6, 1855; entered the piano industry in 1875 with Billings and Wheelock
• Became a partner of William E. Wheelock and Company in 1880, then vice-president of Weber Piano Company after its 1896 merger, and a director of Aeolian after 1903
• In 1906 organized Lawson and Company with his sons William W. and Arthur W. Lawson and George A. Griffin
• Became partner in Wheelock & Company in 1880
• Rose from confidential bookkeeper to full partner
• Combined a mechanical aptitude with a strong mathematical mind

Sources

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. I (1911), p. 326; Vol. II (1913), pp. 135, 136.

Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), p. 288.

Public domain.