 He was awarded the Military Cross in 1919 and left the British Army with the rank of Major.Peter Lawless was well over six feet tall and was described by Michael Moynihan as “a burly, jovial man whose air of a hunting-shooting-fishing English squire went down well with the Yanks.” Before the First World War, Lawless was a keen rower and rowed for the London Rowing Club eight which was defeated by the Union Boat Club in the 1914 Grand Challenge Cup.After the First World War he played in three rugby teams representing Great Britain, against New Zealand, South Africa and Canada, as well as for Richmond F.C., Middlesex, Surrey, Devon, the British Army, for the Barbarians against Leicester in 1920, 1922 and 1924, and against the East Midlands in 1922.