Research & Discussion
General biography
Rejected legend
Youth 1888-1914
War service 1914-1918
Diplomacy 1918-1922
Service years 1922-1935
Lawrence's personality
Writings and criticism
Lawrence and book production
Film, TV, radio
Book reviews
Bibliography & Collecting
Obituaries
Discussion list
Review commentary by Jeremy Wilson on Lawrence, the Uncrowned King of Arabia by Michael Asher
(London, Viking, 1998)
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Chapter 3: Nothing Which Qualified Him to be an Ordinary
Member of Society |
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| page/para/line 32/1/2-3 |
This brisk narrative is guesswork not substantiated fact. We do not know where or when Lawrence enlisted, nor how long the enlistment lasted. The posting was to the castle garrison at St. Mawes, not to nearby St. Just as Asher states (what Lawrence recalled at St. Just was the church, set in a very pretty churchyard). The garrison, a detachment, would have consisted very largely of older enlisted men, not boy-recruits as Asher implies. |
| 32/1/4 | Note "girlish" - an Asher fiction: no-one who knew Lawrence at that time has reported this alleged quality. It is certainly not conveyed by contemporary photographs. |
| 32/1/6 | What evidence does Asher have for the claim that Lawrence "had long fantasized about serving in the ranks"? I know of none. This is very probably invention. |
| 32/1/13-end | The story in these four lines is also fiction. We know nothing about the circumstances in which Lawrence returned to Oxford. The theory that he was bought out is a (reasonable) supposition; but I know of no evidence. |
| 32/2/1-2 | It is correct that Lawrence gave differing accounts of the length of time that this enlistment lasted. The variants may reflect his general lack of numeracy; but in his statements to Liddell Hart and others he may also have deliberately kept the details vague. He knew that publicity about the episode would be deeply embarrassing to his mother, because children do not usually run away from home without a reason. |
| 32/2/3-4 | I think that the enlistment probably lasted more than a few days, but I agree that it may not have lasted very long. |
| 32 end of page | Asher's calculations seem to assume that Lawrence ran away in the first months of 1906. The date is uncertain. Next page |
T. E. Lawrence chronology
1888 16 August: born at Tremadoc, Wales
1896-1907: City of Oxford High School for Boys
1907-9: Jesus College, Oxford, B.A., 1st Class Hons, 1909
1910-14: Magdalen College, Oxford (Senior Demy), while working at the British Museum's excavations at Carchemish
1915-16: Military Intelligence Dept, Cairo
1916-18: Liaison Officer with the Arab Revolt
1919: Attended the Paris Peace Conference
1919-22: wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1921-2: Adviser on Arab Affairs to Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office
1922 August: Enlisted in the Ranks of the RAF
1923 January: discharged from the RAF
1923 March: enlisted in the Tank Corps
1923: translated a French novel, The Forest Giant
1924-6: prepared the subscribers' abridgement of Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1927-8: stationed at Karachi, then Miranshah
1927 March: Revolt in the Desert, an abridgement of Seven Pillars, published
1928: completed The Mint, began translating Homer's Odyssey
1929-33: stationed at Plymouth
1931: started working on RAF boats
1932: his translation of the Odyssey published
1933-5: attached to MAEE, Felixstowe
1935 February: retired from the RAF
1935 19 May: died from injuries received in a motor-cycle crash on 13 May
1935 21 May: buried at Moreton, Dorset