TE Lawrence mystery

[Muerrisch]

Please see my post regarding this today at:

Uniform ID

[George Armstrong Custer]

You'll know, of course, that TEL had a documented penchant for dressing in someone else's clothes for a photograph going back at least as far as the famous photographs of him wearing the clothes of the Arab boy Dahoum at Carchemish c.1912. The Bodleian Library has a photograph of TEL wearing a borrowed uniform c.1924:

The Imperial War Museum's 2005 exhibition, Lawrence of Arabia the life, the legend, captioned the Bodleian photo as: "Lawrence wearing a bombardier's tunic that must have been borrowed. c.1924."

So you're probably spot on with your suggestion that the pic of TEL (if it is indeed him) in an RAF SNCO's tunic may be yet another example of him larking about for the camera in somebody else's clothes. With the 'Shaw' and 'Ross' aliases and the various exchanges of clothing, he certainly seems to have had a deep-seated need throughout his adult life to be somebody else other than than the illegitimate Thomas Edward Lawrence.

ciao,

GAC

[scottmarchand]

Very plausible actually as TEL re-enlisted in the RAF in 1923, see the following shamelessly lifetd from Wiki-

Lawrence was ambivalent about Thomas's publicity, calling him a "vulgar man," though he saw Thomas's show several times.[citation needed] Starting in 1922, Lawrence attempted to join the Royal Air Force as an airman under the name John Hume Ross. He was soon exposed and subsequently forced out of the RAF. He changed his name to T.E. Shaw and joined the Royal Tank Corps in 1923. He was unhappy there and repeatedly petitioned to rejoin the RAF, which finally admitted him in August 1925. A fresh burst of publicity after the publication of Revolt in the Desert (see below) resulted in his assignment to a remote base in British India in late 1926, where he remained until the end of 1928. At that time he was forced to return to the UK after rumours began to circulate that he was involved in espionage activities.

He purchased several small plots of land in Chingford, built a hut and swimming pool there, and visited frequently. This was demolished in 1930 when the City of London Corporation acquired the land.

He continued serving in the RAF, specialising in high-speed boats and professing happiness, and it was with considerable regret that he left the service at the end of his enlistment in March 1935.

He also authored The Mint,[14] a memoir of his experiences as an enlisted man in the Royal Air Force. Lawrence worked from a notebook that he kept while enlisted, writing of the daily lives of enlisted men and his desire to be a part of something larger than himself: the Royal Air Force. The book is stylistically very different from Seven Pillars of Wisdom, using sparse prose as opposed to the complicated syntax found in Seven Pillars. It was published posthumously, edited by his brother, Professor A.W. Lawrence.

After Lawrence's death, his brother inherited all Lawrence's estate and his copyrights as the sole beneficiary. To pay the inheritance tax, he sold the U.S. copyright of Seven Pillars of Wisdom (subscribers' text) outright to Doubleday Doran in 1935. Doubleday still controls publication rights of this version of the text of Seven Pillars of Wisdom in the USA. In 1936 he split the remaining assets of the estate, giving "Clouds Hill" and many copies of less substantial or historical letters to the nation via the National Trust, and then set up two trusts to control interests in Lawrence's residual copyrights. To the original Seven Pillars Trust he assigned the copyright in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, as a result of which it was given its first general publication. To the Letters and Symposium Trust, he assigned the copyright in The Mint and all Lawrence's letters, which were subsequently edited and published in the book T. E. Lawrence by his Friends (edited by A.W. Lawrence, London, Jonathan Cape, 1937).

A substantial amount of income went directly to the RAF Benevolent Fund or for archaeological, environmental, or academic projects. The two trusts were amalgamated in 1986, and, on the death of Prof. A.W. Lawrence, also acquired all the remaining rights to Lawrence's works that it had not owned, plus rights to all of Prof. Lawrence's works.

[Muerrisch]

Thanks for these contributions ..... we conclude it was a dressing up day!

I read 'The Mint' whilst myself stationed at RAF Uxbridge in 1958 ..... an erie experience.

[domsim]

I agree with people on the other thread the SNCO in RAF kit is not Lawrence IMHO-also was Bovington ever an RAF station as it says in the caption-I understood it was always army?

Could the other photo date from his time in the Tank Corps with a bit of mischevious swapping?

Just some thoughts

Cheers

Dominic

[squirrel]

Bovingdon is in Hertforshire and was a USAAF B17 base during WW2 so quite possibly could have been an airfield possibly RAF before that - Bovington in Dorset was the HQ of the tankies post WW1 IIRC.

[domsim]

Bovington is in Hertforshire and was a USAAF B17 base during WW2 so quite possibly could have been an airfield possibly RAF before that - Bovingdon in Dorset was the HQ of the tankies post WW1 IIRC.

Thats BovingTON in Dorset not Bovingdon-and the Dorset one is the only one I have ever heard him linked to?

Cheers

Dominic

[squirrel]

Got them the wrong way round as usual-post edited.

And just adding that there may have been an RAF connection with Bovingdon.

[George Armstrong Custer]

I think it may well be TEL in that newspaper picture on the other thread. Compare it to the one below, which was captioned in the IWM Lawrence exhibition of 2005 as 'Lawrence at Bovington Camp, c.1924' :

Here's the head from the above pic alongside the one from the newspaper of Lawrence dressed as an SNCO:

The hair is brushed the same, but I'd say the newspaper shot shows the distinctive Lawrence lantern-jaw chin to even better effect than the authenticated one of him on the left.

ciao,

GAC

[George Armstrong Custer]

Another comparison with the newspaper SNCO shot; this time the pic on the left shows TEL at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference:

ciao,

GAC