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

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Rabegh

14.12.16

Am in Rabegh - half way between Jidda and Yenbo - tonight, and have just heard that a mail is closing for England. So as I did not write last one here goes this one. I cannot write you details till I reach Egypt, which will not be for some two weeks or so yet. Things very interesting at Yenbo, where is Sherif Feisul, one of the Sons of the Sherif of Mecca. I left there three days ago, and ran down to Jidda, to do a little business am now going back, to stop a few days. Weather delightful, neither hot nor cold, with beautiful winds.

This letter will probably reach you a little after Christmas. I hope it will not be too wet again. All today I have been discussing Arabian geography and politics, which are the local topics. One has forgotten that there are other wars on.  If that silk headcloth with the silver ducks on it - last used I believed as a table-cloth - still exists, will you send it out to me? Such things are hard to get here now.

N.

This is not a letter: only a substitute for a field post card.

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