Lawrence was born in 1914 in Hackney, London to Russian born David and Sophia née Sherman. He was the youngest of four brothers, Albert, Reuben and Raphael. Their father David was a manufacturing jeweller who was born in Kiev and became a naturalised British Subject in 1902.

Lawrence was the pilot of Mosquito MM181 which departed RAF Gransden Lodge on an operation to Hamburg. The cause of the aircraft crash is unknown. Lawrence and his navigator Alphonsus Bede McGlynn, 1100822 were killed.