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St Martin's On-the-Walls, Wareham, 16.V.2025

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Just a little nerdy footnote to the film snippet from Versailles for @nerdyhistoryenjoyer. The habit of walking around with your left hand in your pocket seems to be a family thing, there are hardly any pictures or moving images of A.W. Lawrence without his one hand in his pocket. Even at the funeral. Maybe he was also a notorious hand-fiddler like his older brother, but more consequent about stowing his left hand away.

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The Arab delegation with T.E. Lawrence and Prince Feisal (amongst others) at Versailles in 1919.

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T.E. Lawrence died 90 years ago today on the 19th May 1935

I thought I would share this tribute written at the time by his friend, Francis Yeats-Brown. Excuse poor quality of the screenshots!

Lawrence as I knew him, Francis Yeats-Brown, 24th May 1935, published in The Spectator Magazine

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T.E. Lawrence photographed by Flight Lieutenant R.G. Sims at White Cottage, Hornsea, winter of 1934-35. "Sims, a keen photographer, took what was to be the last series of [Lawrence's] portrait photographs." (Jeremy Wilson, 1990). The collection of photographs would be eventually be published in The Sayings and Doings of T.E. Lawrence, edited by Dr. Leo John de Freitas (1994).

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'Monday, 13th May 1935. It was a fine and calm early morning. By mid-morning the sun had warmed the heath to produce broken cumulus cloud accompanied by a moderate east to north-east breeze blowing in the clear air. Pat Knowles remembered, "he came across to my house earlier than usual. It was one of those bright, still, early spring mornings, and the bird-song, clear and vibrant in the still air, had awakened him soon after five, so, seeing the smoke from my fire he came across. "Whilst I was getting breakfast the postman came. Shaw opened his mail and said that [Henry] Williamson wanted to see him. Over breakfast we discussed his letter. Shaw felt that it would be as well to let him come as soon as possible as he might not have the time to spare later. I said why not the next day? He thought it a good idea, and so it was decided […]; he would go down later and send off a telegram telling him to come for lunch the following day… "After breakfast Shaw brought out the Brough and I heard him running it up. I guess that he was cleaning and polishing and servicing it. […] I was working in the garden and heard him leave and heard the sound of the Brough's engine all the way to Bovington."' ‘At precisely 11.25 a.m. a telegram was dictated and the Post Office assistant wrote it out and sent it to Henry Williamson:

'From the Post Office Lawrence walked the short distance back across the road to the Red Garage. Walt Pitman, the pump attendant, asked him if he needed any fuel; Lawrence replied, “I'm alright, thanks,” then he climbed on to his Brough...’

T.E. never made it home. On his return, he slammed on the brakes attempting an emergency stop, swerving to avoid two young cyclists, Albert Hargreaves and Frank Fletcher. He was thrown into the air --head first, wearing no helmet-- and landed just beyond his motorbike.

Images, top to bottom: Portrait by Reginald Sims at the White Cottage, Hornsea, February 1935; The telegram sent to Henry Williamson; Photograph by Bill Knowles of T.E. at Clouds Hill on 'George VII', GW2275 in summer 1934 (possibly the only image of him on this ill-fated bike).

The above paragraphs are an abridged excerpt from Chapter 12, 'On the 13th Day of May' of The Last Days of T.E. Lawrence: A Leaf in the Wind, Paul Marriott and Yvonne Argent, 2002, pp. 102-3.

I expect at least some of this chapter has been shared many times before, but I still felt compelled to copy it out again. I think about T.E. every day, but over the course of the next week or so, he will likely take over the entirety of my brain: dear, dear man.

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a doomed union

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British officers entering Jerusalem in 1917 through the Jaffa gate. T.E. Lawrence easy to spot.

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The final script by Terence Rattigan for the planned Rank-production of "Lawrence of Arabia" , 1957. Dirk Bogarde was to star as T.E. Lawrence but the project was abandoned. Rattigan later reworked his script into the successful play "Ross" - a dramatic portrait", which premiered in 1950. The script was auctioned off in 2024 at Sotheby's for 2160 GBP.

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Peter O'toole, being upset about the sun on the set of Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

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Michael Bryant who took over from Alec Guinness in 1960 at the Theatre Royal Haymarket

John Mills in a Broadway production from 1961

Ian McKellen in a lost production of BBC Play of the Month, 1970

Simon Ward (here with Garfield Morgan as Auda) in the revival production at the Old Vic in 1986

Ross: a dramatic portrait's different productions

Alec Guinness as Ross, Mark Digman as Auda; Royal Court Theater, Liverpool

Unable to find actors; Worksop College, Nottinghamshire

Will Cox as Ross, Andre Vafiadis as Rashid; Independent Theater, Australia

Joseph Fiennes as Ross, Eben Figueiredo as Rashid, Peter Polycarpou as Auda; Chichester Festival theatre

1. , 2. , 3. , 4.

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day in the life of a true arab revolt geezer

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Oh, Ross - how did I become you?

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When TE Lawrence writes in his letters about "the Austrian", he means the renowned arabist Alois Musil.

Of course, he wasn't Austrian - he was Czech, from Moravia, which was at the time part of the Habsburg monarchy. 20 years older than Lawrence (same age as Gertrude Bell), he travelled in the Middle East from the late 19th century to the outbreak of the war and is most known for the discovery of Kuseyr Amra with its figural frescoes. He published many articles and books - The Manners and Customs of the Rwalla Beduins (published in English as well) remains till this day a major ethnographical work on the subject. His life was full and interesting (and I can't write it all here in one post, and the rest I'm writing under the cut).

During the war Musil found himself on the side of the Central Powers - from 1914 to 1915 and then again in 1917 he was sent to Arabia to unify the tribes and convince them to either stay neutral, or to support the Ottoman government; a mission he himself considered a doomed effort.

In his writings he never fails to criticize the colonial expansion of the British Empire, and especially TEL himself - Musil probably viewed him as a symbol of the British actions in the Middle East and never forgave him the Revolt (and, specifically, never forgave him the damage TEL's beduins had done to Amra in 1917 on the move to Azrak). As such, his judgment of TEL is harsh, and not entirely just (years after, when TEL died, Musil gave a eulogy for the Czechoslovak radio - while he admits some of TEL's qualities, it is scathing; definitely not "only good about the dead" sort).

In many ways, they were similar - both endured hardships, both disappeared in the desert among the native tribes and lived like one of them, both accomplished things (methinks) nobody else in their particular circumstances could have accomplished. Both met and befriended the same people - Talaal, Nuri ibn Shaalan, Auda abu Tayeh. The war disillusioned and wounded them both. Maybe in another world, they could have been colleagues, sharing the same love for desolate places.

(photo courtesy of ASAM - Akademická Společnost Aloise Musila)

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Adding my favourite two pictures of him standing next to fellow British officers.

images to behold how small and tiny he is

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I added two more versions (not in the book) of the picture from his home journey 1929 on the boat from India just for fun. The ship's staff were obviously quite smitten!

Some photographs I scanned from "Lawrence of Arabia: The Life, The Legend" by Malcolm Brown since I saw they haven't been digitized (from my knowledge) or they are but aren't in as good a quality

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A letter to the artist William Orpen by T.E. Lawrence, dated December 26th, 1919

William Orpen painted the above portrait of T.E. Lawrence during the Paris Peace Conference. When Lawrence found that they both had articles published about them in the same issue of the Strand magazine, he sent Orpen the above letter. Unfortunately this is only the first page, as the letter was auctioned off at Sotheby's in 2019 and only this part was put online. It reads:

Oxford, 26.XII.19 Dear Orpen, I was most pleasantly reminded of you today, when I received a copy of the Strand (my favourite reading: I think it expresses all that is best of our current English literature) and found that you and I are in it, side by side, as “features”. As it is a Bank Holiday, and wet, I sat down and tabulated ourselves, with results so interesting that I felt I must send you a copy. If after reading it you feel you would like to meet my (?)... Lowell Thomas I will do my best towards an introduction, if you will try to persuade your (?)… Sidney Dark to write just a little paragraph about my habits. O.                                                                   L. “A great painter”.                                      “A great camel driver” “Official artist Portuguese Govt.”         “Every inch a king” “Friend of George Moore”                      “Mind on buried treasures” “A.R.A. at thirty”                                       “the youngest of the apostles” Major S W Orpen R.A. K.BE.                   “Plain Lawrence” “Livery stable clerk”                                 “Prince of Mecca” “Dainty little dreamer”                             “Born strategist” “Completely unspoiled”                          “Eccentric” “Cheery little Irishman”                            “A great white God” “ _ Bill Orpen”                                             "Named in a solemn hush” “Supremely good”                                    “Reckless” “Short, stiff figure”                                    “Like a Circassian girl” “Cannot see through an oak door”        “Rare knowledge of religion”