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 Clare Sydney Smith

---

Hythe:

May 19. [1932]

I scribble a line to-night to my two female correspondents - Mrs. Shaw and Mrs. Smith - to warn them that 'dinghies' are 'up.' I do about ten hours in them and on them daily, and that will go on till all 8 are as perfect as the Works can be persuaded into making them.

In the intervals of leisure I look after the little tank boat, and the two armoured boats.

On June 4 I am to come to Dover with the little tank boat, for it to refuel 20 Squadron during their six-weeks attachment to Dover. That sounds to me like Manston for a week-end. I shall be free for at least 24 hours then - and not afterwards till July.
The news about Basra is good, on thinking it over. If it must be, then the sooner the better.

I'm sorry about Whitsun. I spent it yachting - in three dinghies, to be exact. Quite hard work, too, for one of them was addled.

T.E.S.

Back to top

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