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

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119, Clarence Road,
East Cowes,
Isle of Wight.

21.V.33.

Throughout May I have been moving - Felixstowe, London (three times), Manchester, Nottingham, Hythe, Cowes - and so no news has kept up with me. Hence this is merely a line to report the new address.

In the paper to-day I saw a short note of a bad crash at Manston - Hutchings and your Moth, I am afraid. That is bad, very bad.

Met Lord to-day. He seemed a little shaky but the firm has sold the R.A.F. some Clouds, so they should be more hopeful.

My job here is to watch the building of five pinnaces for the R.A.F. in White's yard: not thrilling ships, but solid and costly.

The engines are being done at Manchester, and they may take me off up there again any day. But if you or Sydney are likely to be in Southampton Water any time, do send me a line and remember Carlow! The Biscuit is at Batten, of course, poor thing.

T.E.S.
 

Note
Hutchings - Flight Lieutenant Hutchings had been killed.

 

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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