Harley Fleetwood Lawson, son of Shine B. Lawson and Emma Adams Lawson, was born in Hawkinsville, Pulaski County, Georgia, October 4, 1879. With the exception of seven years while he was away at school, he has spent his entire life in Hawkinsville.
He attended the Hawkinsville public schools, leaving them without graduating, and entered Mercer University, from which he graduated with an A.B. degree in 1899. He taught school in different parts of the State until 1904, when he began the practice of law in Hawkinsville, having studied law under the late W. J. Hammond.
He has held the following offices and positions: Alderman of Hawkinsville, member of the Hawkinsville Board of Education, member of the County Board of Registrars, trustee of Mercer University, Macon, Ga. He has served two terms as a member of the House of Representatives, and one term in the State Senate. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the Georgia Bar Association, of which he has been secretary and president; a member from Georgia of the Board of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. He is a Mason, a member of the Kappa Alpha fraternity, and an honorary member of the international legal fraternity of Phi Delta Phi.
He was married in 1907 to Rena Brandon, of which marriage two children were born: Harriet (Mrs. W. 0. Collins), and Roger Hugh Lawson, who is a student at the law school of the University of Georgia.