Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to his family
Cairo, Savoy Hotel
21.2.16
Post is going tomorrow, so I'm going to write now. Nothing to say, as usual. Newcombe is back in Cairo for a few days: he may be going back to the W.O. for a few days, though I shouldn't think so. He will probably be made a Colonel shortly. We are changing office tonight, so that everything is in a royal disorder. Each time we change we get more and more rooms: here is the Savoy Hotel, which is Headquarters at present, we now have 15 rooms, not counting little rooms. I have now got quite a decent room to myself, and have decorated it with a map of the Caucasus about 15 feet long (the largest map I have ever seen) one of Syria, about 12 feet high, and the beginnings of one on Egypt, bigger than either of these. It is rather amusing work publishing and drawing maps. We are up to l,000,000 now, actual sheets, (mostly Gallipoli) of a total of about 600 different maps. The Egyptian Government handed over its Survey Department to us - or rather Dowson, Director General of Surveys, handed it over to us, and the Government agreed - so that there are about 1,000 workmen and a very large plant (second only to Southampton) at our disposal. The cost has not been what one would expect: paper etc. about £28,000: and expenses of staff etc. about £75,000. Egypt pays the second, War Office the first. There is a very great deal in hand just now. I wish I could send Arnie some of them. However you got the Gallipoli, which was a very pretty map. I have a lovely little 500,000 of the Turkish Empire in hand just now. It will take about six months to do. Also an Arabia (two months) which will be an important thing. I wish there was some news to tell you: there is heaps as a matter of fact just now, but it is not for publication. We seem to be fixed for ever in Cairo: all efforts now are directed to organizing the office so that it continues after the War on its present scale. They will have to find a substitute for me! We have got a little man called Deedes in our office now: he is an ex-Turkish Gendarmerie instructor, captain in the English Army, and a very excellent man. I like him best of the bunch. I'm going to bed now.
N.
| Source: | HL 314 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 2 January 2006 |
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