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 his family

---

Arab Bureau
Savoy Hotel
Cairo

18.11.16

This is only a scrawl to inform you what I wired:- namely that I have got back to Cairo. I left on October 13 from Cairo, reached Jidda on October 16, left there on October 19, for Rabegh. Left Rabegh on October 21, by camel; went up to Sherif Feisul's H.Q. at a place called Bir Abbas, half-way between Medina and the sea, about 100 miles North of Rabegh. After a few days there returned by road to Yenbo, and embarked on Nov. 1 for Jidda. On November 4 changed ships there, and went across to Port Sudan with Admiral Wemyss. Reached Khartoum on November 7 and stayed with the Sirdar till November 11, when I took train down to the Nile to Halfa, then steamer to Asswan, and then by rail to Cairo. At Asswan Hugh Whitelocke got into my carriage, and we were together as far as Luxor where he intended to stay a day to sightsee. Since my return I have been extravagantly busy:- so much so that I cannot possibly write to you probably for two or three days yet. The day is one long series of interruptions.

I have now left G.H.Q. and joined the Arab Bureau, which is under the Residency here. That is, the Sirdar is in charge of it, or will be very shortly. The atmosphere of being one's own master - or at any rate of being with people whose voices are not drowned by their grinding of axes - is pleasant.

All very well.

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