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

 

T. E. Lawrence to his mother

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338171 A/c Shaw R.A.F.
Miranshah
Waziristan
India

10.7.28

This will be a note only. Very late, and working hard, doing some photography (developing and printing) as well as my office job, owing to the photographer going ill. Your letter to here came on Sunday.

Yes, I think I shall like this place: though they talk of bringing me back to Peshawar. I hope not: this is quieter: and we are not allowed outside the fort walls, so that I have not to imprison myself.

Philby is embittered, by not having succeeded politically. I got all I wanted, and so can afford to be kindly towards him. That angers him worse. A very nice fellow, but queer: very queer. Short of money, now, I believe. I'm glad you met Mrs. Shaw. It's very hard to be a great man's wife. She succeeds with it. I like her. Hope you'll meet G.B.S. some time. He is like a tonic: and very kind. A most sensible, vigorous old man. The Chingford people want to buy all Pole Hill, and exchange it, with the forest people, for some strips of forest, in the village, which they would like to make into roads and things. I do not feel inclined to help them: and I doubt whether they will attempt forced purchase. Don't worry about Arnie's baby. I think Arnie hopes to get his new book adopted as a text-book. They are profitable things.

I'm glad Leeds has got the Museum. Lots of people grudged it him.

I'm doing the office job which used to be done by a clerk here: a lot of typing, and that sort of thing. Enough, but not too much for each day. The first date I can come back is the early summer of 1930: and that only if this film gets itself over next year.

N.

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