T. E. Lawrence

Contents lists

1888-1910

1911

1912

1913

1914

1915-16

1917-18

1919-20

1921

1922

1923

1924

1925

1926

1927

1928

1929

1930

1931

1932

1933

1934

1935

Updated June 2012

T. E. Lawrence to Will Lawrence

---

Cairo 

2l January 1915

Address

Intelligence Department
 Cairo

I hear from home that you are attaching yourself to some regiment in India: I wish you had been in Egypt, though there isn't any job I can actually offer you, since you cannot speak Arabic. Can't you get on a regiment that will come here later? This show in Egypt will be rather a pleasant one I hope. Turkey is crumbling fast.

More news when I next write. For the last 6 weeks I have been
stuck in Cairo, in the office from morning to night, making sense of the news brought to us, and asking for more. Also writing little geographical essays. It doesn't sound exciting, but it has been far and away the best job going in Egypt these few weeks. The people at the Pyramids or on the Canal have had a very dull time.

Not much news from home: things seem to be moving quietly enough, over there.

Belgium has become a very unpleasant place. I don't want to go back there now!

G. is married, and settled down to a comparative peace. His pan-Ottoman feelings must be now much encouraged - but so long as things go quietly his sort won't have much scope.

I expect Young is in the Persian Gulf by now, talking Arabic and Persian, and doing great things. If not salaam him from me.

N.

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