Lawrence is a small town in Otago, in New Zealand's South Island. It is located on State Highway 8, the main route from Dunedin to the inland towns of Queenstown and Alexandra. It lies 35 kilometres to the northwest of Milton, 11 kilometres northwest of Waitahuna, and close to the Tuapeka River, a tributary of the Clutha. History The discovery of gold at Gabriel's Gully by Gabriel Read in May 1861 led to the Central Otago goldrush with the population of the gold field rising from almost nothing to around 11,500 within a year, twice that of Dunedin at the time. Gabriel’s Gully was quickly dotted with tents and workings, stores and government “buildings”. By December 1861, there were some 14,000 people on the Tuapeka goldfield and it continued to climb and by February 1864 was around 24,000. Around a third of these miners were English, a significant proportion were Irish, while some were European, with others of Chinese origin. The ground under the makeshift township site, was also gold rich. Gradually, the commercial and administrative services for the what became known as the Tuapeka fields were concentrated on non-gold bearing ground away at the entrance to the Gully. A new town was surveyed in 1862 by Robert Grigor and named Tuapeka with sections in the town auctioned on 5 November 1862. By 1864 most people had shifted from the canvas town across the stream to which quickly became the focal point for Otago's goldfield with a bank, hotels, ironmongers, drapers, a watchmaker, bookmaker, newsagent, and various other stores. The town became a municipality in 1866 and was renamed Lawrence in honour of Sir Henry Lawrence, hero of the Lucknow military campaign of 1857. The development of large scale sluicing in the area in the 1870s caused flooding of the low lying areas of the town, which forced government buildings, churches and schools to relocate up the hill to Colonsay Street, while Peel Street became the business street. In mid-1862, it is estimated that twice as many people lived around the banks of the Tuapeka River as did in Dunedin itself. By 1870 the settlement of Chinese miners just outside the town had 300 residents. The Black Horse Brewery, was established in the town in 1866. It closed in 1923. The tune to New Zealand's national anthem was composed in Lawrence by John J. Woods, a Lawrence school teacher. In