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 Major R. H. Scott

---

Grand Continental Hotel
Cairo.

14. 10. 1918

Dear Scott,

Many thanks for your wire. As we hoped we got to Damascus, and there I had to leave the Arabs - it is a pity to go, and it would have been unwise to stay. I feel like a man who has suddenly dropped a heavy load - one's back hurts when one tries to walk straight.

I'm off, out of Egypt. This old war is closing, and my use is gone. I'm afraid you will be delayed a long time, cleaning up all the messes and oddments we have left behind us.

I have only one thing in Akaba which I value - my engraved British rifle. Please see that it reaches Cairo safely. My regards to the Staff - and my very best thanks to you and them. We were an odd little set, and we have, I expect, changed history in the near East. I wonder how the Powers will let the Arabs get on.

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