Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to R. V. Buxton
14 Barton Street
21.XII.22.
Dear Robin,
Advise me out of your goodness. Doubtless you know that a while ago I changed my name and enlisted in the R.A.F. The old name bored me with its length and its associations: The new ones John - Hume - Ross were chosen by chance, but seem to me to fit my length and breadth: also I could drop the Ross and sign a book 'John Hume' without its seeming odd.
The difficulty is about cheques. As my balance is nil that may seem to you not pressing: but I've decided to sell an abridgement (rather less than one third) of my Arabian narrative, and this will bring in some thousands (perhaps £6000) next year. After that I'm quite likely to chuck the R.A.F. but meanwhile I hang on to it with no more expenses than artists and a motor-bike. I'll pay in £200 or £300 shortly, so as to meet these cheques which I must occasionally draw.
Can I draw as J.H. Ross? and pay in cheques made out so to me? I believe that the change of christian names is not legal... but is it difficult? Other authors get paid in their pen-names - but I'd like to use the old 'Lawrence' as a pen-name, and live under the new one.
Very sorry for
bothering you: but I haven't the power here to get hold of a solicitor,
and the matter will come up for decision
early in January.
Yours
T.E.L.
| Source: | DG 388-9 |
| Checked: | jw |
| Last revised: | 6 February 2006 |
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