mansions. Australia At the age of 21, Lawson armed only with a letter of introduction to one of brother’s friend residing in Melbourne he boarded the ship Tongataboo on 15 July 1854, arriving in the city on 1 November in that same year. Like other new arrivals in Australia, he tried many new occupations over the next two years on various goldfields tried goldmining before eventually settling in the town of Steiglitz where as well as remaining involved in gold mining activities he became the agent for the Melbourne newspaper The Argus and for whom it is believed he also acted as its local correspondent. During this period he occasionally turned his hand to architecture, designing the Free Church school and in 1858 a Catholic school. He was also involved in assessing and share broking. By 1859 he was secretary of the Steiglitz Prospecting & Mining Company and then its managing director until it was wound up in late 1861. As Lawson came to realise the low probability of success in the gold rush and the precariousness of and by the end of 1861 had moved to Melbourne with the intention of resuming a full-time career in architecture. In 1861, the first Otago gold rush brought an influx of people to southern New Zealand, including a new generation of emigrants. To service the rapidly expanding population of the region’s principal settlement , the 13 year old town of Dunedin the Descon’s Court of the presbytery of Otago decided now was the time to build a permanent Presbyterian church to serve as its principal place of worship. In the January 1862 they announced a competition with a prize of £50 to select a suitable design what was to become First Church. Lawson heard about the competition either from his younger brother John Lawson who had already emigrated to Otago or via a copy of the Otago Daily Times that had found their way to Melbourne. He decided to enter the competition and was able to submit from Melbourne a set of drawing under the pseudonym of “Presbyter” by the closing date of 15 March 1862. If this pseudonym was designed to catch the eye of the Presbyterian judges, it was well chosen: his design was successful. Emigration to New Zealand As a result of winning the commission to design First Church Lawson was able in 1862 to move to Dunedin and