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 Lieutenant Robin White R.N.

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Plymouth

10.6.31.

I will never be a sailor, I'm afraid: born too late, though my father had yachts and used to take me with him from my fourth year: but my attempted accomplishment is motor-boating, a very different art, and as difficult. Sailing has only wind and water, and the two-party system is simply to work. With power all manner of complications enter and the art becomes exquisite, and subtler. Only it isn't sailing! 

Last week we ran down from Southampton here in 7 hours in one of the new R.A.F. boats: and this morning (it being most rough and horrid). We chased the Keppel out beyond Rame Head, till she took over too much water for 20 m.p.h. and turned back to the Sound. We turned back, willingly, and kept station till within the breakwater: then home: but the poor Keppel has to wait out there. 

My own boat is in the shed, till I finish these R.A.F. tests. Almost sick of speed boating, I am, now. 

What is the Viscount?  It sounds like an unarmoured ship, and should not be the smallest of its class, or rank, or shouldn't it be the Viscountess?  "She" says the incarnate sailor, stroking the gangway of the Iron Duke, "can be a perfect bitch in a cross-sea."  "He surely" I suggest, but incarnate deny it. What can a mere airman say? 

Yours sincerely,

T. E. Shaw

I should, properly, have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient Servant: but proprieties have been observed with the Lieut at the top. Unless you are a Commander now. I hope so.
 

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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