Thomas Edward Lawrence

Tremadog, Wales, 1888 - 1935

About MeT. E. Lawrence, was a British Army officer particularly renowned for his liaison role during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, and the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title which was used for the 1962 film based on his World War I activities.

Lawrence was born in Tremadog, Wales, in August 1888 to Sir Thomas Chapman and Sarah Junner, a governess who was herself. Chapman had left his wife and first family in Ireland to live with Sarah Junner, and they called themselves Mr and Mrs Lawrence. In the summer of 1896 the Lawrences moved to Oxford, where in 1907 to 1910 Lawrence studied history at Jesus College, graduating with First Class Honours.

Lawrence became a practising archaeologist in the Middle East, working at various excavations with David George Hogarth and Leonard Woolley. In 1908 he joined the Oxford University Officer Training Corps, undergoing a two-year training course. In January 1914, before the outbreak of World War I, Lawrence was co-opted by the British Army to undertake a military survey of the Negev Desert, while doing archaeological research.

Lawrence's public image was due in part to the release of film of Lawrence in Jerusalem by American journalist, Lowell Thomas, along with Lawrence's autobiographical account, Seven Pillars of Wisdom from 1922.