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 Sydney Cockerell

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July 29th, 1929

Dear C.

Statues are so different, unless someone quite first-rate does them. Epstein is the obvious choice, only he is not, I expect, a Hardy lover, and when he improvises he is not enchanting. Night, on the Underground House is lovely: and Day rather forced. The Hudson Memorial is a gem: and the Medical building is quite meaningless.

Dobson is a good sculptor, and might do something as beautiful as his Welsh War Memorial design: but he would hardly work to order. Kennington would do a fine design: but he never met Hardy. Gill – would Gill be good, do you think? It is embarrassing to have four good English sculptors: embarrassing and unusual!

Dorchester of course wants to possess T.H. Too late, poor things. He has assumed half Wessex for his own.

I hope to see the 2nd Applecart: 27th Aug. I think it is. A very difficult date for me, as I am one of the groundsmen for the Schneider Cup.

Yours ever

T.E.S

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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