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 Colonel C. E. Wilson

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[Akaba]

2.9.17

Dear Colonel Wilson,

I should have answered your very kind note before, but I was busy about stores and things when the Southward ships were sailing. The Hejaz show is a quaint one, the like of which has hardly been on earth before, and no one not of it can appreciate how difficult it is to run. However it has gone forward, and history will call it a success: but I hope that the difficulties it has had to contend with will be equally clear. All my memories of it are pleasant (largely due to you, of course, for on the face things should not be so), and if ever I can get my book on it out, I'll try to make other people see it. They do not seem always to appreciate that while we hop about the Railway and places smashing things up, and enjoying ourselves, someone else has to sit and stew in Jidda keeping the head of the affair on the rails. You would be glad to hear sometimes how Feisul and the rest speak of you.

However, here is a request. The Sherif never approved of Jaafar's coming and has never been reconciled to it. Jaafar has done very good work, and has pulled the officers more or less together, and made himself recognised as the head of them. This is going to change the discipline and spirit of the whole force like magic, if he can get a few more officers. He's just gone to Egypt for this. Do you think you could get a letter from the Sherif to him, thanking him for his efforts, and saying something nice about their mutual hopes for the future? Jaafar is a little down in the mouth, and this letter would give him confidence.

I fancy it may not be as easy as it sounds to get the right letter from the Sherif - but if you could get a pleased moment or a tactful friend it might be done. A direct request would look a little odd.

I hope to go off towards Mudowwara in three days' time: have been held up for money.

Yours sincerely,

T. E. Lawrence

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