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 C. M. Doughty

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Colonial Office

13.6.21.

Dear Mr. Doughty,

I should have replied earlier, but I've been hoping to come down to see you, and have only just given up hope of it. There is too much to do here: Winston is going to make his speech in the house tomorrow, and when the trouble of that is over I will probably be sent to Jidda to see King Hussein. In that case I will try to steal a journey to Taif, and have a look at the country round about it.

Abdulla is in Trans-Jordan, carrying on a government there with our help, but without any formal appointment. Indeed he refused one, until his father had been consulted, and had approved. That was a polite way of saying never.

No, I'm afraid there is no blue-book of the Hejaz war, and probably will never be. We sent some reports back to Egypt, but they were kept secret, and are now buried somewhere among the records.

My friend Aubrey Herbert, a very splendid creature, has asked me to get your autograph to his copies of Arabia Deserta. One, that with Feisal's signature upon it, is for a wedding present to his brother. I'm sending them you by post, with two things of my own - the first sheet of the large-paper A.Ds. I’d be very much obliged if you would sign all four!

With apologies for troubling you,

yours sincerely

T E Lawrence

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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