To tell the true story of Thomas Edward Lawrence's life would be the same as trying to tell the true, factual story of Robin Hood of Locksley. Although history does know that this man existed, what this man really did and who he truly was still remains a mystery. His own autobiographical works say what happened to him when he was a general in the British Army in Arabia; however, there are many skeptics who say his claims are false, but not even these skeptics' claims can be proven. To say Lawrence's quests are true would be to say that almost every man's fantasy of intrigue and adventure in remote locations of the world is possible; to say they are false would be to slander one of the greatest historical figures of modern history, as close to blasphemy as one could get. Lawrence was an amazing spectacle of mystery, power and peace, a modern-day Jesus who brought to the sands of Arabia victory for the desert tribes and who helped to establish his foot in the world of archaeology, which was his self-proclaimed "one, true love." It is the hope of this author to bring to this site some insight as to who this man was, what he stood for and what shaped him into the man he was to become.
The boyhood of Lawrence was one that began in contoversy. This controversy would walk with him all his life until his dying day. His father Thomas Robert Tighe Chapman had been an heir to a baronetcy in Ireland. He was married in 1873 to his wife Edith who bore him four daughters. It was not for his family that Thomas loved. His heart belonged to the governess of his children, and in 1884, when his wife found the two "romping" in the house, he ran away from the estate, taking his money with him and settling down in Dublin, Ireland, where the couple (who could not and never did marry) had their first child Robert. Thomas Edward ("Lawrence of Arabia") was born in the wee hours of the morn of August 16, 1888 at Tremadoc in Caernarvonshire, Wales, after the family had moved from Ireland and England where they had changed their last names to Lawrence. A little over a year later, the family moved a fourth time to Kirkcudbright in Scotland, where William, the third son, was born. A year-and-a-half later, after periodic stays at the Isle of Man and in Jersey, the Lawrences settled for a while at Dinard on the northern coast of France, where even at an early age, surviving records indicate that T.E. was a very intelligent boy.
In September 1896, when T.E. was eight years old, the family moved to Oxford, England. It was during these formidable years the nature of his mom was shown. She was a God-fearing individual who knew she had committed a sin in feeding her lover's adultery against his true wife, and Mrs. Lawrence made it her goal to always let her sons know how much she loved them (almost to a point of smothering them with this love and affection). Eventually, Lawrence's knowledge of this adultery would have a vast effect on his personal life. Lawrence was of small stature, a contrary thing to the height of his brothers. He was easily characterized by his five-and-a-half-foot frame and his large head, that some say made him look even smaller than he already was. In 1908, T.E. set out on a cycling tour of France, which ended up being a way for him to study medieval military architecture, which would later become the subject for his Oxford thesis. It was a quiet and wild ride at Oxford. T.E. hardly went to classes, preferring to read all his materials instead and explore the streams and lands of the English countryside as well as anything with archaeological merit that he could find.
While at Oxford, Lawrence came into good relations with his archaeology professor, Dr. D.G. Hogarth (at left). Eventually, Hogarth was to become his "mentor, confessor and patron...the man to whom I owe everything I have had since I was seventeen...he was like a great tree, a main part of the background of my life: and till he fell I hadn't known how much he had served to harbor me," T.E. would say later in his life. Authors Phillip Knightley and Colin Simpson, co-authors of The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia, go as far as to say that "it is no exaggeration to say that without Hogarth there might have been no Lawrence of Arabia." That is truly a big statement to make, but it is absolutely true. Hogarth would eventually have a say-so and an impression on the actions Lawrence would take when he would join the British Army. Before the war, however, Lawrence went on an archaeological expedition, headed by his friend Hogarth, to excavation sites in the Euphrates Valley. There he was hoping to uncover traces of the ancient civilization of the Hittites. This expedition eventually led to the uncovering of the lost city of Carchemish, which had been the capital of the Hittite Empire thousands of years before. One of T.E.'s favorite things to do was to involve himself in the study, analysis and deciphering of ancient writings and heiroglyphs, and he had plenty to lose himself in as he found hundreds of fragments of pottery and buildings of the Hittite Empire. He helped to uncover ruins that ended up being the "missing link" between the civilizations of Ninevah and Babylon and the beginnings of Greek culture in the Mediterranean islands, which dated to as far back as five thousand years. Truly, these were great times for Lawrence. Many exhibits of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford contains the findings T.E. found in that part of the world and was able to take back with him. Amazingly enough, some of these exhibits were created before he was even twenty year old! Though archaeology was his true passion and though he did make a significant impact on the world of archaeological anthropology, this science was not to be the main focus of his life.
Many historians to date claim that Lawrence's eventual alliance with Hogarth in the Arab Bureau, Hogarth's Political Intelligence Service, was covered up cleanly by his love and study of archaeology (so conveniently). Although it is highly likely that Hogarth did use archaeology as a disguise for his relationship with the British Intelligence Service, it is highly improbable that Lawrence did the same...he was a true archaeologist who became involved (maybe because he felt indebted) in Hogarth's P.I.S. T.E., inspired by Hogarth, focused his attentions on the battle and technical tactics of most of the great military figures in history, concentrating mostly on those of the Middle Ages. He became almost obssessed with learning and concentrating on the history of the order of knighthood during the Middle Ages and of the Middle Ages themselves, always being strongly encouraged by Hogarth. It was as if he was preparing himself to become a knight, to fight for good against evil, to be clean, strong, just and chaste. This was in 1914, and when Turkey joined Germany in the war against the Allies, Lawrence was posted to Cairo where he ran an intelligence operation and recruited his own operatives and agents. Weeks of surveying the Sinai Desert taught Lawrence most of what he needed to know to survive in the desert should the need ever arise; he quickly learned where strategic places were, including watering holes. Many historians attribute Lawrence's archaeology skills to the successes he had in battle; not only did he learn the ways of the Bedouin, but as aforementioned he knew where strategic sites across the desert were located. He was a young man always prepared for the future.
Whether or not T.E. used archaeology as a coverup will probably never be known; the man known to the world as Lawrence of Arabia was a man of mystery: blonde-haired, blue-eyed and dressed in white robes embroidered with gold. These descriptions of Lawrence portrayed to the world in Lowell Thomas' With Lawrence in Arabia left, in the minds of Europeans and Americans, a romantic figure of otherworldy might and power. In the Middle East, he came to be known as the Uncrowned King of Arabia. Yet, it is currently thought that Lawrence's main concern with the protection of the Arabs didn't stem from his want for them to have freedom in their own land, but rather that he wanted to bring the Arabs under firm, British control. This is evidenced in a letter he wrote in 1914: "...[Hussein's] activity seems beneficial to us, because it marches with our immediate aims, the breakup of the Islamic 'bloc' and the defeat and disruption of the Ottoman Empire..." What his true intentions were (whether to help the Arabs win their freedom or get them under British control), we will never know.
It is a peculiar sight to see that this dashing, powerful man and leader of the Arab Revolt was also a homosexual, or at least a man who never fully came in touch with his sexual orientation, another enigma of this great man. From the way Thomas decribed him, one would have thought this man (and indeed, many did) to be the woman's "ideal man" in every sense of the phrase. Yet, to read about this man's life is to also grasp his confusion as to his identity. Clearly, T.E.'s knowledge of his bastardy had a profound effect on him: it made him quite an introvert, and that is why it is so extraordinary that such a quiet man could become such a fierce warrior and leader. In his The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence tells of an incident that took place in Deraa. He had chosen this local capital as the place to cut the Medina railway to stop shipments of food, ammunition and other supplies to the Turks. One night, as he was spying the land, he was apprehended by the "police" of the Bey, the governor of the province. He goes on to explain that the man sodomized him and then had him beat almost to death, after he had had his way with him. As if that wasn't enough, before he was thrown out on the streets by the Bey's men, he was raped by the three police who had apprehended him. In those times, words like these were extremely controversial and it led people to be even more sympathetic to this figure. "Oh, Lawrence, the great warrior who will stop at nothing to fight for freedom," people would say. The strange thing is when historians of the 1960s first approached this incident and followed up leads to see whether this had occurred or not, they found that the Bey had actually been a heterosexual and had had a reputation of having female lovers at his house quite frequently. In one instance, the family of the Bey (who was dead by this time) showed some historians who were following this story a letter the ruler had written to a friend. In it he told of the sexual escapapdes he and a comrade had had with several women of royal importance one night when they were visiting other palaces of royalty. But why would Lawrence make up such a story? Perhaps, it has been suggested, his extremely religious and overprotective upbringing by his mother led him to fantasize about sexual escapapdes he himself knew he would never be able to obtain.
It is also interesting to note that along the way, Lawrence always had a significant male friend in his life. At Oxford, this man was Vyvyan Richards. Richards claimed his love for Lawrence after Lawrence's death and made no hesitations to state it to those who asked, but they never had sexual encounters, he claims. "...he gave me the purest affection, love and respect that I have ever received from anyone...a love and respect that was spiritual in quality. I realize now that he was sexless-at least that he was unaware of sex," Richards stated to Knightley and Simpson. There was also a person in Lawrence's life whom he never revealed but simply called 'S.A.' Whether this person was male or female, no one truly knows, but looking into his personal life leads one to believe that this person, whom he loved dearly, was male. During the early days of Lawrence's time in the desert, he befriended a Bedouin young man named Dahoum, and it was widely known among the Bedou that Lawrence would have him pose nude for him. But perhaps the most interesting person that passed through T.E.'s life was a young man whom he used as his personal agent, John Bruce (at right). Eventually, the two would join the Royal Air Force, although there was quite a certain age difference between the two. Bruce recounts that Lawrence's "boss" was a man he referred to as "The Old Man." On many occasions, a naked Lawrence would have John beat him with a slim branch because it had been the will of "The Old Man," for Lawrence making mistakes. These two men (Lawrence and Bruce) had a very complex, strange relationship that only the two of them really knew about, and Bruce stands out as the most awkward person who came into T.E.'s life.
Regardless of the mystery that surrounds Lawrence's personal life, no one can doubt that he was truly a man of valor and honor: someone who shaped the tide of events in the Middle East during the first World War. His later life, after he left the RAF, was spent at his home at Cloud Hills. He withdrew from all forms of social life (he neither smoked nor drank), keeping in touch with his friends, of whom Mr. and Mrs. George Bernard Shaw were his best (especially Mrs. Charlotte Shaw), through correspondence. Many assumed that he would run for the office of prime minister and until the day he gave a reporter a black eye, there were always reporters and admirers at his front gates. Little by little, his friends started to see that he was becoming a hermit, staying inside all day, cleaning the house every day and then retiring to either write, read or sleep. On May 19, 1935, Lawrence died from injuries sustained from a motorcycle accident. Even in death, controversy and mystery surrounded him. Some said he had faked his own death to take up important work in the Middle East during World War II and actually died an old man at a villa in Tangiers. Others claimed he had actually been killed by agents of a foreign power, including France, Germany and Arabia; some even went as far as to say that the British had killed him because he was going to reveal top-secret government information in the book he had been writing. And then some say he committed suicide because he saw his life going nowhere. It matters not the truth or the reason for this man's death. What matters is that a short, archaeology student of illegitimate beginnings grew up to become one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century, to become the Uncrowned King of Arabia. At his funeral, Winston Churchill wept and called him "one of the greatest beings of our time" saying that "whatever our need we shall never see his like again." To this day, the world has yet to produce a person of his conscience and of his might, a person who brought an end to a great revolt and who changed the tide of events in one of the largest sections of the world.
Bibliography:
1. Knightley, Phillip and Simpson, Colin. The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1969.
2. Thomas, Lowell. With Lawrence in Arabia. New York: Popular Libraries, 1961.
3. Nutting, Anthony. Lawrence of Arabia. New York: Signet Books, 1962.
4. Payne, Robert. Lawrence of Arabia: A Triumph. New York: Pyramid Books, 1962.
This page compiled and maintained by Matthew David Cavazos
This page last updated 4/22/97.
Send comments to matthewrocks@mail.utexas.edu