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Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, military officer, diplomat, and writer. He was renowned for his liaison role during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia—a title used for the 1962 film based on his wartime activities.
He was born out of wedlock in Tremadog, Wales, in August 1888 to Thomas Chapman (who became, in 1914, Sir Thomas Chapman, 7th Baronet), an Anglo-Irish nobleman from County Westmeath, and Sarah Junner, a Scottish governess (whom Chapman had left his wife and first family in Ireland to cohabit with; they called themselves Mr and Mrs Lawrence). In 1896, the Lawrences moved to Oxford, where their son attended the High School and then from 1907 to 1910 studied History at Jesus College. Between 1910 and 1914 he worked as an archaeologist for the British Museum, chiefly at Carchemish, in Ottoman Syria.
Soon after the outbreak of war he volunteered for the British Army and was stationed in Egypt. In 1916, he was sent to Arabia on an intelligence mission and quickly became involved with the Arab Revolt, providing, along with other British officers, liaison to the Arab forces. Working closely with Emir Faisal, a leader of the revolt, he participated in and sometimes led military activities against the Ottoman armed forces, culminating in the capture of Damascus in October 1918.
After the war, Lawrence joined the Foreign Office, working with both the British government and with Faisal. In 1922, he retreated from public life and spent the years until 1935 serving as an enlisted man, mostly in the Royal Air Force, with a brief stint in the Army. During this time, he wrote and published his best-known work, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, an autobiographical account of his participation in the Arab Revolt. He also translated books into English and wrote The Mint, which was published posthumously and detailed his time in the Royal Air Force working as an ordinary aircraftman. He corresponded extensively and was friendly with well-known artists, writers, and politicians. For the Royal Air Force, he participated in the development of rescue motorboats.
Lawrence's public image resulted in part from the sensationalised reporting of the Arab revolt by American journalist Lowell Thomas, as well as from Seven Pillars of Wisdom. In 1935, Lawrence was fatally injured in a motorcycle accident in Dorset.
He was born out of wedlock in Tremadog, Wales, in August 1888 to Thomas Chapman (who became, in 1914, Sir Thomas Chapman, 7th Baronet), an Anglo-Irish nobleman from County Westmeath, and Sarah Junner, a Scottish governess (whom Chapman had left his wife and first family in Ireland to cohabit with; they called themselves Mr and Mrs Lawrence). In 1896, the Lawrences moved to Oxford, where their son attended the High School and then from 1907 to 1910 studied History at Jesus College. Between 1910 and 1914 he worked as an archaeologist for the British Museum, chiefly at Carchemish, in Ottoman Syria.
Soon after the outbreak of war he volunteered for the British Army and was stationed in Egypt. In 1916, he was sent to Arabia on an intelligence mission and quickly became involved with the Arab Revolt, providing, along with other British officers, liaison to the Arab forces. Working closely with Emir Faisal, a leader of the revolt, he participated in and sometimes led military activities against the Ottoman armed forces, culminating in the capture of Damascus in October 1918.
After the war, Lawrence joined the Foreign Office, working with both the British government and with Faisal. In 1922, he retreated from public life and spent the years until 1935 serving as an enlisted man, mostly in the Royal Air Force, with a brief stint in the Army. During this time, he wrote and published his best-known work, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, an autobiographical account of his participation in the Arab Revolt. He also translated books into English and wrote The Mint, which was published posthumously and detailed his time in the Royal Air Force working as an ordinary aircraftman. He corresponded extensively and was friendly with well-known artists, writers, and politicians. For the Royal Air Force, he participated in the development of rescue motorboats.
Lawrence's public image resulted in part from the sensationalised reporting of the Arab revolt by American journalist Lowell Thomas, as well as from Seven Pillars of Wisdom. In 1935, Lawrence was fatally injured in a motorcycle accident in Dorset.
T. E. Lawrence - Wikipedia
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TE Lawrence Poem Seven Pillars
I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars To earn you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house, that ...
Thank you my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that August 16 is the anniversary of the birth of British archaeologist, military officer, diplomat, and writer Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO who was renowned for his liaison role during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.
My paternal grandfather served as a British Army lance corporal at Gallipoli, Turkey in 1915.
The 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia with British Lieutenant T.E. Lawrence played by Peter O'Toole; Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness) and Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) was wonderful in scope and acting brilliance IMHO. That introduced me to T.E. Lawrence as a child.
Image: Emir Faisal; Lt. Colonel T.E. Lawrence - early 1918. Thomas Edward (of Arabia) Lawrence riding a camel; T.E. Lawrence, Prince Feisal and others pose after taking Aqaba. July 1917.
Background from pef.org.uk/profiles/lt-col-te-lawrence-lawrence-of-arabia-cb-dso-1888-1935
"Lt. Col. T.E. Lawrence (‘Lawrence of Arabia’), C.B., D.S.O., 1888-1935
T.E. Lawrence, 1919After an initial career as an archaeologist Thomas Edward Lawrence emerged from the carnage and horrors of the First World War as the famous youthful ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. Following his role as intelligence officer and military adviser in the Middle East during the war, and peace-maker and diplomat afterwards, Lawrence went to extraordinary efforts to escape his fame and retreated into the obscurity of the military ‘ranks’ under various pseudonyms. A legend in his own lifetime, a complex and brilliant man with a ‘genius for friendship’ and a gifted writer, he remains to this day a person of particular fascination who attracts a variety of opinion.
Portrait image: Colonel Lawrence at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
The second of five brothers, Lawrence was born 16 August 1888 in Caernarvonshire, Wales. His father, Thomas Chapman, was an Anglo-Irish gentleman landowner and his mother, Sarah Junner, was of Scottish origins. She became governess to the Chapman household in Ireland but after eloping with Chapman they adopted the family name of Sarah’s father, John Lawrence. After a peripatetic early period the family settled in Oxford where Lawrence attended the City of Oxford High School for Boys and Jesus College, University of Oxford. His B.A. dissertation research on Crusader castles led him to travel for the first time to the Middle East in 1909, especially within Ottoman Syria.
After university, with the help of his Oxford mentor, D.G. Hogarth (Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum and member of the PEF Committee) Lawrence became an archaeologist and spent several seasons (1910-14) working with Leonard Woolley on the British Museum excavations at the Neo-Hittite site of Carchemish near Jerablus in North Syria (now on the Turkish/Syrian border).
In early 1914 Woolley and Lawrence, at the request of the British Museum, accompanied a survey party making maps in the Sinai Desert. While Lawrence undertook an archaeological survey (which he described as providing ‘archaeological colour to a political job’ as permission was required from the Turks who controlled this area) the topographical work was carried out by Captain Newcombe who later worked with Lawrence during the Arab Revolt. This survey, sponsored by the PEF, was tasked with extending southwards the previous PEF Survey of Western Palestine carried out in the 1870s. The 1914 survey (published by Woolley and Lawrence as The Wilderness of Zin, PEF Annual III, 1915) later greatly assisted Lawrence because of the surveying and map-making skills he learnt and also the first-hand knowledge he gained of the terrain, especially in the Aqaba area.
In August 1914 Lawrence joined the Geographical Section of the General Staff in London but following Turkey's entry into the war he was transferred (December 1914) to the Intelligence Department in Cairo where he joined the Arab Bureau (with D.G. Hogarth as its head). In seeking Arab support for the British war effort Lawrence and the Bureau became increasingly involved with Arab nationalist movements and politics but had to contend with French colonial rivalry and ambitions.
In June 1916 Sherif Hussein of Mecca started the Arab Revolt and in October Lawrence first visited the Hejaz. From 1916-1918 Lawrence greatly influenced the military and political strategy of the revolt and acted as principal liaison officer between the British (General Allenby) and Arab Forces (Prince Faisal). He famously led raids on the Hejaz railway, helped capture the vital seaport of Aqaba(July 1917), and conducted important military and political reconnaissance expeditions. Lawrence accompanied the Arabs in reaching Damascus (October 1918) and helped set up a provisional, but short-lived, Arab government.
In January 1919 Lawrence attended the Paris Peace Conference and argued vigorously, but unsuccessfully, for Arab freedom. During this period he began to write his monumental book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom – privately published in 1926. After the Conference Lawrence took up a Research Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. From February 1921 to March 1922 Lawrence worked for Churchill in the Colonial Office and attended the Cairo Conference in March 1921 and was British representative in Transjordan, October – December 1921.
In August 1922 Lawrence joined the Royal Air Force as an Aircraftsman under an assumed name, John Hume Ross. However press publicity caused him to be dismissed in January 1923 and two months later he joined the Royal Tank Corps at Bovington, Dorset as a private under the name of Thomas Edward Shaw (legally adopted by deed poll in 1927). In 1925 he succeeded in returning to the RAF and in January 1927 he took up a posting in India (Karachi) where he started to draft a book about his early period in the RAF (The Mint published 1955). Due to false press reports about spying he was hurriedly brought back to England in January 1929 and went to RAF Mount Batten, Plymouth.
From 1929 – 1935 Lawrence was engaged in the development of RAF high speed boats (RAF 200 Class), which played an important role in rescuing airmen from the English Channel during the Battle of Britain. In February 1935 he retired from the RAF and died on 19 May 1935 after a motorcycle accident near his cottage (Clouds Hill, now National Trust) near Wareham in Dorset. He is buried in St Nicholas' Church, Moreton, Dorset.
Recommended reading
Brown, M. (ed.) 2005. Lawrence of Arabia –The Selected Letters. London: Little Books.
Lawrence, T.E. 1935. Seven Pillars of Wisdom. London: Jonathan Cape (many subsequent reprintings and editions).
Mack, J.E. 1998 (1976). A Prince of Our Disorder – The Life of T.E. Lawrence Harvard University Press.
Wilson, J. 1989 Lawrence of Arabia – The Authorised Biography of T.E. Lawrence. London: William Heinemann.
Woolley, C.L. and Lawrence, T.E. 2003. The Wilderness of Zin (PEF Annual III, revised 3rd edition). London: Stacey International."
TE Lawrence Poem Seven Pillars
"I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To earn you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house,
that your eyes might be shining for me
When we came.
Death seemed my servant on the road, till we were near
and saw you waiting:
When you smiled, and in sorrowful envy he outran me
and took you apart:
Into his quietness.
Love, the way-weary, groped to your body, our brief wage
ours for the moment
Before earth's soft hand explored your shape, and the blind
worms grew fat upon
Your substance.
Men prayed me that I set our work, the inviolate house,
as a memory of you.
But for fit monument I shattered it, unfinished: and now
The little things creep out to patch themselves hovels
in the marred shadow
Of your gift."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhyjKGplYLQ
FYI SGT John MeredithMSgt John McGowanMSgt David M.LTC Jeff ShearerSGT Philip RoncariLt Col Jim CoeCWO3 Dennis M.SGT (Join to see)PO3 Bob McCordSgt Albert Castro1SG John MillanSSgt Boyd Herrst TSgt Rodney BidingerSGT Jim ArnoldSFC Randy PurhamCDR (Join to see) MSG Brian Ross SGT Rick Colburn PO3 Phyllis Maynard
My paternal grandfather served as a British Army lance corporal at Gallipoli, Turkey in 1915.
The 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia with British Lieutenant T.E. Lawrence played by Peter O'Toole; Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness) and Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) was wonderful in scope and acting brilliance IMHO. That introduced me to T.E. Lawrence as a child.
Image: Emir Faisal; Lt. Colonel T.E. Lawrence - early 1918. Thomas Edward (of Arabia) Lawrence riding a camel; T.E. Lawrence, Prince Feisal and others pose after taking Aqaba. July 1917.
Background from pef.org.uk/profiles/lt-col-te-lawrence-lawrence-of-arabia-cb-dso-1888-1935
"Lt. Col. T.E. Lawrence (‘Lawrence of Arabia’), C.B., D.S.O., 1888-1935
T.E. Lawrence, 1919After an initial career as an archaeologist Thomas Edward Lawrence emerged from the carnage and horrors of the First World War as the famous youthful ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. Following his role as intelligence officer and military adviser in the Middle East during the war, and peace-maker and diplomat afterwards, Lawrence went to extraordinary efforts to escape his fame and retreated into the obscurity of the military ‘ranks’ under various pseudonyms. A legend in his own lifetime, a complex and brilliant man with a ‘genius for friendship’ and a gifted writer, he remains to this day a person of particular fascination who attracts a variety of opinion.
Portrait image: Colonel Lawrence at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
The second of five brothers, Lawrence was born 16 August 1888 in Caernarvonshire, Wales. His father, Thomas Chapman, was an Anglo-Irish gentleman landowner and his mother, Sarah Junner, was of Scottish origins. She became governess to the Chapman household in Ireland but after eloping with Chapman they adopted the family name of Sarah’s father, John Lawrence. After a peripatetic early period the family settled in Oxford where Lawrence attended the City of Oxford High School for Boys and Jesus College, University of Oxford. His B.A. dissertation research on Crusader castles led him to travel for the first time to the Middle East in 1909, especially within Ottoman Syria.
After university, with the help of his Oxford mentor, D.G. Hogarth (Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum and member of the PEF Committee) Lawrence became an archaeologist and spent several seasons (1910-14) working with Leonard Woolley on the British Museum excavations at the Neo-Hittite site of Carchemish near Jerablus in North Syria (now on the Turkish/Syrian border).
In early 1914 Woolley and Lawrence, at the request of the British Museum, accompanied a survey party making maps in the Sinai Desert. While Lawrence undertook an archaeological survey (which he described as providing ‘archaeological colour to a political job’ as permission was required from the Turks who controlled this area) the topographical work was carried out by Captain Newcombe who later worked with Lawrence during the Arab Revolt. This survey, sponsored by the PEF, was tasked with extending southwards the previous PEF Survey of Western Palestine carried out in the 1870s. The 1914 survey (published by Woolley and Lawrence as The Wilderness of Zin, PEF Annual III, 1915) later greatly assisted Lawrence because of the surveying and map-making skills he learnt and also the first-hand knowledge he gained of the terrain, especially in the Aqaba area.
In August 1914 Lawrence joined the Geographical Section of the General Staff in London but following Turkey's entry into the war he was transferred (December 1914) to the Intelligence Department in Cairo where he joined the Arab Bureau (with D.G. Hogarth as its head). In seeking Arab support for the British war effort Lawrence and the Bureau became increasingly involved with Arab nationalist movements and politics but had to contend with French colonial rivalry and ambitions.
In June 1916 Sherif Hussein of Mecca started the Arab Revolt and in October Lawrence first visited the Hejaz. From 1916-1918 Lawrence greatly influenced the military and political strategy of the revolt and acted as principal liaison officer between the British (General Allenby) and Arab Forces (Prince Faisal). He famously led raids on the Hejaz railway, helped capture the vital seaport of Aqaba(July 1917), and conducted important military and political reconnaissance expeditions. Lawrence accompanied the Arabs in reaching Damascus (October 1918) and helped set up a provisional, but short-lived, Arab government.
In January 1919 Lawrence attended the Paris Peace Conference and argued vigorously, but unsuccessfully, for Arab freedom. During this period he began to write his monumental book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom – privately published in 1926. After the Conference Lawrence took up a Research Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. From February 1921 to March 1922 Lawrence worked for Churchill in the Colonial Office and attended the Cairo Conference in March 1921 and was British representative in Transjordan, October – December 1921.
In August 1922 Lawrence joined the Royal Air Force as an Aircraftsman under an assumed name, John Hume Ross. However press publicity caused him to be dismissed in January 1923 and two months later he joined the Royal Tank Corps at Bovington, Dorset as a private under the name of Thomas Edward Shaw (legally adopted by deed poll in 1927). In 1925 he succeeded in returning to the RAF and in January 1927 he took up a posting in India (Karachi) where he started to draft a book about his early period in the RAF (The Mint published 1955). Due to false press reports about spying he was hurriedly brought back to England in January 1929 and went to RAF Mount Batten, Plymouth.
From 1929 – 1935 Lawrence was engaged in the development of RAF high speed boats (RAF 200 Class), which played an important role in rescuing airmen from the English Channel during the Battle of Britain. In February 1935 he retired from the RAF and died on 19 May 1935 after a motorcycle accident near his cottage (Clouds Hill, now National Trust) near Wareham in Dorset. He is buried in St Nicholas' Church, Moreton, Dorset.
Recommended reading
Brown, M. (ed.) 2005. Lawrence of Arabia –The Selected Letters. London: Little Books.
Lawrence, T.E. 1935. Seven Pillars of Wisdom. London: Jonathan Cape (many subsequent reprintings and editions).
Mack, J.E. 1998 (1976). A Prince of Our Disorder – The Life of T.E. Lawrence Harvard University Press.
Wilson, J. 1989 Lawrence of Arabia – The Authorised Biography of T.E. Lawrence. London: William Heinemann.
Woolley, C.L. and Lawrence, T.E. 2003. The Wilderness of Zin (PEF Annual III, revised 3rd edition). London: Stacey International."
TE Lawrence Poem Seven Pillars
"I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To earn you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house,
that your eyes might be shining for me
When we came.
Death seemed my servant on the road, till we were near
and saw you waiting:
When you smiled, and in sorrowful envy he outran me
and took you apart:
Into his quietness.
Love, the way-weary, groped to your body, our brief wage
ours for the moment
Before earth's soft hand explored your shape, and the blind
worms grew fat upon
Your substance.
Men prayed me that I set our work, the inviolate house,
as a memory of you.
But for fit monument I shattered it, unfinished: and now
The little things creep out to patch themselves hovels
in the marred shadow
Of your gift."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhyjKGplYLQ
FYI SGT John MeredithMSgt John McGowanMSgt David M.LTC Jeff ShearerSGT Philip RoncariLt Col Jim CoeCWO3 Dennis M.SGT (Join to see)PO3 Bob McCordSgt Albert Castro1SG John MillanSSgt Boyd Herrst TSgt Rodney BidingerSGT Jim ArnoldSFC Randy PurhamCDR (Join to see) MSG Brian Ross SGT Rick Colburn PO3 Phyllis Maynard
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SSG Robert "Rob" Wentworth
“And now you know.... the REST of the Story”...
Thank you so much Capt Marty Hogan for bringing us this very educational biography on LTC T.E.Lawrence...
Thank you so much Capt Marty Hogan for bringing us this very educational biography on LTC T.E.Lawrence...
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Unfortunately, he had a sort of "love affair" with the Arabs that has influenced policy to this day.
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