Early Life
Louisa Lawson was born on 17 February 1848 at Guntawang Station near Gulgong, New South Wales, the daughter of Henry Albury and Harriet Winn. She was the second of 12 children in a struggling family, and like many girls at that time left school at 13. On 7 July 1866 aged 18 she married Niels Larsen (Peter Lawson), a Norwegian sailor, at the Methodist parsonage at Mudgee, New South Wales. He was often away gold mining or working with his father-in-law, leaving her on her own to raise four children — Henry 1867, Charles 1869, Peter 1873 and Gertrude 1877, the twin of Tegan who died at eight months. Louisa grieved over the loss of Tegan for many years and left the care of her other children to the oldest child, Henry. This led to ill feelings on Henry's part towards his mother and the two often fought. In 1882 she and her children moved to Sydney where she managed boarding houses.
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