Charles Lanier Lawrance (September 30, 1882 – June 24, 1950) was an American aeronautical engineer and an early proponent of air-cooled aircraft engines.
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Early life
Lawrance was born on September 30, 1882, in Lenox, Massachusetts, the son of Francis Cooper Lawrance Jr. (1858–1904) and his first wife, Sarah Eggleston Lanier (1862–1893). After his mother's death in 1893, his father remarried to Susan Ridgway Willing, a sister of Ava Lowle Willing (who married John Jacob Astor IV). They had a daughter, a half-sister to Lawrance, Frances Alice Willing Lawrance, who married Prince Andrzej Poniatowski (son of Prince André Poniatowski) in 1919. From his parents marriage, Lawrance had a younger sister, Kitty Lanier Lawrance, who was raised by their paternal grandfather, as their parents died when she was still young. In 1915, Kitty married W. Averell Harriman, the Governor of New York (they divorced in 1928).
Lawrance's maternal grandfather was banker Charles D. Lanier, a close friend of Pierpont Morgan. His great-grandfather was James F. D. Lanier, who founded Winslow, Lanier & Co. His paternal grandfather was Francis Cooper Lawrance, of Paris and Pau, France. In 1885, his paternal aunt, Frances Margaret Lawrance, married George Venables-Vernon, 7th Baron Vernon.