[See also 'Lawrence and Lowell Thomas']

As most people on this List know, Lowell Thomas’s photographer Harry Chase took a series of photographs of Lawrence in London in 1919. This would seem to include all the indoor photographs of Lawrence in white, and some at least of the ones in a patterned head-dress.

While working on the thumbnail photo gallery for the ‘Factfile’ (rather urgently, for the benefit of my German publishers), I have found myself asking another question in relation to the Chase pictures:

How many photographs of Lawrence did Harry Chase take during the brief time that they were together at Akaba in 1918?

The answer seems to be… very few indeed.

Before Akaba, there is a Chase photograph of Lawrence on the balcony in Jerusalem

After Akaba, there is a small series of photographs of Lawrence, Hogarth and Dawnay.

There is one photograph of Lawrence, apparently taken at Akaba, standing outside a tent and looking rather small and unromantic. As far as I know Thomas used this only once, in an early Asia Magazine article.

There is a photograph of Lawrence and Thomas together, outside a tent (there may be several similar shots). Presumably these were taken at Akaba.

Can Joe Berton or Claire Keith tell us what other photographs of Lawrence were definitely taken by Chase at Akaba?

The question has implications:

First, of course, if Thomas was going to follow the popular mood and upgrade the ‘Lawrence’ element in the Travelogue in 1919, it was not just that he could do with a few more shots of Lawrence, he desperately needed them!

Second, without more pictures of Lawrence, it would have been very hard indeed for Thomas to sustain the fiction implied-but-not-quite-stated in his presentations and subsequent book, that he and Chase had spent a considerable time with Lawrence and the Arab forces. How many readers of With Lawrence in Arabia have guessed that the author had in fact been ‘with Lawrence in Arabia’ for only a day or two, and ‘in Arabia’ (but not with Lawrence), for only a few days after that?

Reply by SM, location not identified
Posted: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 11:34:32 -0500

Jeremy’s absolutely right. A close read of With Lawrence of Arabia makes it clear that Thomas spent a couple of days with Lawrence at Akaba, then went up to Petra with Harry Chase (but without Lawrence); and that was the extent of it. All of Thomas’ accounts of Lawrence’s activities in Arabia, apart from the few observations in Akaba, are second- or third-hand. With Lawrence of Arabia really is a fraudulent book. Note the few lines about Lawrence’s supposed trip into the jungles of Sumatra, chasing (or being chased by) headhunters.

Lawrence himself went on record saying that Thomas never rode with him on any of his desert outings.

The popularity of the Lawrence legend seems to have taken even Thomas by surprise. According to John Mack’s book, Thomas began in New York by giving a series of slide shows on different aspects of the war, including the Western Front and Allenby’s operations in Palestine. The Allenby show was the only one that caught on with the public, so Thomas dropped the others. Thomas then took the Allenby show to London, calling it With Allenby in Palestine. The Lawrence story, which was just a small part of that show, turned out to be the crowd-pleaser, so Thomas redesigned the show around Lawrence.

Thomas did not in any way anticipate Lawrence’s popularity in the years after the war. He saw the public pick up on Lawrence, knew that he had a winner, and responded.

Reply by Jeremy Wilson, UK, List Moderator
Posted: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 15:15:40 -0500

The problem is one of standards. As historians, we judge people by standards of honesty and conduct which have never applied in the world of popular journalism — whether we are talking about 1919 or today.

Within the accepted mores of journalism, it is no insult to Lowell Thomas to say that he ‘improved’ his yarns liberally and laced them with outright fabrication. The problem begins when people assume that every word that Thomas uttered was true, and that any facts that appear inconsistent with his utterances must therefore be false.

I have worked alongside Fleet Street journalists and I therefore know better than many scholars how their minds work. Successful journalists are usually people of great charm and apparent sincerity, able to put themselves alongside — and be trusted by — the high and the humble alike. Behind all that, their job is to exploit their sources and their popular audience with a deeper cynicism even than politicians. A journalist always has a hidden agenda, as many people discover to their cost. However patiently, sympathetically, enthusiastically they listen, they will always try to write something that sells.

I think that the gulf between standards of truthfulness that are acceptable to academics and standards of truthfulness that are acceptable to journalists is so wide that academics have a very real problem writing about journalists.

Reply by AWM, USA
Posted: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 13:28:22 -0500

Jeremy’s questions about the Harry Chase photos are intriguing. Someone mentioned on the list once that she recalled reading that Lowell Thomas said the negatives for the show were destroyed. So is there anywhere else a record of what slides were shown? Do surviving programs list the pictures? If any such description existed, it could help narrow down when and where the photos were taken.

Reply by Brian Duggan, USA
1065) Posted: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 15:12:17 -0800

With regard to Chase’s photographs at Akaba, I can vouch for a few more. There is one photo of Lawrence, Joyce, Goslett and others outside the staff tent (Goslett has his Saluki with him). I believe this is the same tent that Jeremy Wilson mentions in the Thomas/Lawrence portrait – the gramophone will tip you off. There are a couple of other photographs of camp scenes at Akaba (attributed to Chase) that do not feature Thomas or Lawrence.

An energetic photographer could have shot them all in one or two days but of course, that does not preclude a longer stay by Chase and Thomas. I believe that some motion picture film was also shot, but that may not have been at Akaba.

Reply by Jeremy Wilson, UK, List Moderator
Posted: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 15:12:17 -0800

Yes, there are a number of photos at Akaba and Guweira by Chase. I was thinking specifically of ‘portrait’ photos where TEL is the central figure. I agree about the staff tent photo — although Lawrence’s face is not easy to make out in the printed version I have seen. There are also two photos of TEL in groups with Arabs, and one on his camel — again, not certainly identifiable because his face is small.

To complicate matters, not all the photos in With Lawrence in Arabia were by Chase — e.g. the official Peace Conference group and the photo of Hussein.

Reply by Professor Bob Morris, Canada
Posted: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 16:14:29 -0500 (EST)

>>According to John Mack’s book, Thomas began in New York by giving a series of slide shows on different aspects of the war, including the Western Front and Allenby’s operations in Palestine. The Allenby show was the only one that caught on with the public, so Thomas dropped the others. Thomas then took the Allenby show to London, calling it With Allenby in Palestine. The Lawrence story, which was just a small part of that show, turned out to be the crowd-pleaser, so Thomas redesigned the show around Lawrence.<<

No.. Thomas first took the show (after New York) to Toronto (and some other less important places in the US.)

The Toronto Star sponsored his talk and thus placed huge display ads in their newspaper. (Shameless self promotion?)

Before the first talk, a picture of Thomas and Lawrence was published but Lawrence was not named!

Then, after the talk, the following appeared:

- – -

STORY OF LAWRENCE LIKE [H. RIDER] HAGGARD NOVEL
Traveloguer Gives an Amazing Account of British Boy Who United Arabs
AN UNCROWNED KING
Was Largely Responsible for Successful Revolt Against the Turks

One of the most astounding stories of the whole war, the tale of Col. T. Lawrence, the British archeologist, who became the uncrowned king of the Hedjaz, was related to an audience at Massey Hall last night by Lowell Thomas in his travelogue “Freeing Holy Arabia.” Listening to this amazing tale as it flowed coolly and impersonally from the lips of the speaker, the average hearer had to pinch himself to determine whether he were actually hearing a true story and seeing motion pictures of its incidents, or were listening to some new romance by a Sir Rider Haggard or a Kipling.

[etc. etc.]

- – -

I posted the whole story on the list some time ago.

So, in Toronto, it was the newpapers who decided that the Lawrence story was the big one of the half dozen that Thomas presented.

Thomas “by public demand” held the show over and repeated the Allenby/Lawrence item.

Lawrie Raskin and I have prepared a brief story on Thomas in Toronto for possible publication in the Ottawa Citizen.

Interestingly, the Massey family commisioned Augustus John to do his World War I pictures, some of which are in our National Gallery here in Ottawa, including one of Lawrence (see Grosvenor — the one of Lawrence in a cap.)

And, Raymond Massey, the actor of the family, was I believe, going to play Feisal in one of the Lawrence films that never was!

Raymond Massey was most famous for playing Abe Lincoln.

Reply by Professor Claire Keith, Marist College, USA
1070) Posted: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 13:44:03 EST

My apologies for not answering promptly Jeremy’s recent query regarding the photos taken by Chase in Aqaba. The teaching and departmental work tend to get in the way at the beginning of the semester. Chase did take a number of photographs at Akaba, some of them very moving, to my mind, in the way they echo the descriptions of the Seven Pillars: the ragged and irrepressible Arabs, ramshackle dwellings, and overall raw energy of wartime. As Jeremy points out, however, a very limited number of them show Lawrence himself, and they are all familiar to us. Thomas’ war diaries and correspondence (not just from Arabia) give us a good perspective on his method – or lack thereof – in recording what he saw. He took notes in abundance but in an impressionistic way, following his own inclination toward the human interest value rather than the larger military analysis.

In fact, he never really chased a particular story, but tried to follow any potentially good narrative material on the spot. As he moved on to his next destination, a new story piqued his interest, and displaced the previous one in his thoughts. This is true for the Lawrence episode also.

We may wish to keep in mind the following:

The Allenby-Lawrence show achieved its suprising overnight success in London without the benefit of the later series of Lawrence portraits from the London sitting. An experienced creator of travelogues, Thomas constantly sought to improve his product, as is illustrated by his bartering of footage with the British War Office, his purchases of National Geographic desert scenes (the suggestion of Dale Carnagey), Chase’s additional filming and photographing as they took the show to Australia, and, of course, Lawrence’s London portraits.

Fran Thomas’ diary show that the Thomases did not know Lawrence’s whereabouts and did not expect him to be in England as they sailed for their first presentation on the continent. It came as a thrilling surprise that Lawrence should call on them in person shortly after the show’s beginning. In his customary ad hoc manner, Thomas saw the chance for additional portraits and we can guess that he was enchanted when Lawrence agreed to pose. Thomas always made the best of what he had or, to be exact, he embroidered on what he had. He did not so much need the pictures for a pre-arranged tale. Rather, the sudden and unexpected bonus of the additional pictures opened new horizons in his creativity…

I am sorry that for want of time, I cannot address here the larger issue of the inventions and excesses of With Lawrence in Arabia. A substantial amount of Thomas source material will be released shortly in the Journal of T.E.Lawrence Society, which will hopefully give more references for this fine discussion.

Reply by MSM, USA
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 13:12:20 EST

Regarding With Lawrence in Arabia: who are the 18 gentlemen of Chicago mentioned in the dedication?

Reply by GH, USA
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 07:37:24 -0800

I believe these were businessmen who provided funding for Thomas’s early film-making endeavors. I do not know their names.

Reply by JA, UK
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:45:52 -0500

I seem to remember some of the Chicago businessmen were being blackmailed or might face unwanted police charges and Lowell Thomas got them clear of these. They offered to help him in return if he ever needed it; he subsequently asked them for support in his war reporting activities. Do not think any were named. Jeremy probably has more comment and information on this.

Reply by Jeremy Wilson, List Moderator, UK
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:45:52 -0500

Sorry to disappoint, but I am not an expert on Lowell Thomas’s pre-Lawrence biography!

Reply by HR, USA
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 01:09:21 EST

There have been a number of questions pertaining to Lowell Thomas recently on this list.

Many of these questions can be answered in the very interesting book by Joel C. Hodson. This book is Lawrence of Arabia and American Culture: The Making of a Transatlantic Legend (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995). For example, the story of the “nameless gentlemen” who became Lowell Thomas’s benefactors is covered on pp. 13-14. Lowell Thomas’s daily itinerary when he was in Aqaba and environs, 28 March-10 April 1918, is given on p. 18. Hodson states, “Together, Lawrence and Thomas created a potent story, but one no less honest than most of the official Allied war propaganda and a good deal more appealing” (p. 26).

There is much more worth reading in this very interesting and insightful study by Hodson. It is highly recommended.

Reply by St.John Armitage, UK
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 10:00:31 -0500

There are at least three Chase photographs of Lawrence and Faisal with others at Aqaba.

There is also a photograph of Thomas (rear view) being introduced to Faisal by Lawrence. I saw this only two days ago during the Centennial of Saudi Arabia celebrations in Riyadh in an unpublished history of the Royal Saudi Air Force captioned “Wing Commander Lovell (sic)Thomas being introduced to Sharif Faisal”!

With regard to the time spent by Thomas with Lawrence in Arabia, the former’s book is the least reliable basis for calculation. Thomas skeleton diary entries as published by Joel Hodson are a much a clearer pointer especially when collated with references by Lawrence and others.

Reply by Joe Berton, USA
1094) Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 14:46:57 -0600

I would like to add some more information to the recent postings concerning Harry Chase and his photographs of Lawrence. I think it’s best to divide the Chase photos of Lawrence into three catagories; 1) Wartime photos, 2) Postwar photos, and 3) Mislabeled photos.

In the first catagory there are Chase photos of:

• Lawrence at Akaba standing on a prayer rug
• Lawrence and British officers at Akaba
• Lawrence and two Syrian advisors
• Feisal and Arabs seated-Lawrence on the right
• Another unpublished version of this
• Lawrence and Lowell Thomas standing in front of a tent
• The well published photo of Lawrence and L.T. squatting in front of the tent
• Another unpublished one similar to the last but showing Lawrence and L.T. facing each other.

Other wartime photos include the two Jerusalum shots of Lawrence in Arab robes – one an interior and the other on the balcony. There are also three photos of Lawrence in army uniform in Cairo, two with Hogarth and Dawnay.

I am aware of thirteen wartime photos of Lawrence; eight taken in Arabia. Some photos from this group appeared in print as early as Sept. 1919 in Asia magazine.

There are at least nineteen postwar Chase photos of Lawrence. These include the ‘Lawrence dressed in all white’ shots and the patterned head dress shots that were published in the Century and Hutchinson editions of With Lawrence in Arabia. Some of these remain unpublished. These photos were taken in London, most likley in September or October of 1919. (For more information see Joel Hudson’s book Lawrence of Arabia and American Culture or Fred Crawford’s and my article in English Literature in Transition, Volume 39:3 1996). The first widespread print appearance of any of these postwar Lawrence photos was in Strand magazine of January 1920.

So far I’ve put three Chase/Lawrence photos in the mislabeled catagory. The first is the photo showing an Arab standing behind his kneeling camel with another Arab on a camel behind him. This first appeared in Asia, Oct. 1919 properly captioned “Two members of Lawrence’s Bodyguard”. It then is used in the Hutchinson editions of With Lawrence in Arabia titled “Lawrence on his racing camel.” I have seen an original print of this at the Thomas archives at Marist and almost certainly neither figure is Lawrence. The definitive proof however is in the Lawrence papers on reserve at the Bodleian where I saw a copy of this print. On the reverse in Lawrence’s handwriting is; “Mustafa Abdoula Akaba” with Abdoula crossed out.

Another wrongly identified photo is titled by Thomas as “Lawrence and his bodyguard in the desert.” Printed first in Asia magazine of September, 1919, it reappears in the Century edition of his book titled as “Sidi Lawrence and his sons.” Lawrence is not in this group picture however.

Lastly, the photo titled “Lawrence would occasionally disguise himself as a gypsy woman of Syria.” I found an original of this print at Marist with an inventory number on the reverse. I looked up this number on Thomas’s list of identified glass plate negatives and it comes from a group of pictures taken by Chase of Palestinian women and children. In the inventory the print is simply titled “Heavily veiled woman.”

When Thomas brought his show to London he was surprised to find Lawrence there and willing to be of some assistance to him. He posed for more pictures to fill out the Lawrence part of the travelogue and is almost undoubtedly the source for additional photographs that Thomas uses in the February 1920 Strand article and some future Asia stories. These photos by Lawrence himself appear in print in the Strand uncredited and in Asia, wrongly attributed to Chase and Thomas. It seems no photos by Lawrence were used in the travelogue though and none in the book editions of With Lawrence in Arabia.

Jeremy Wilson rightly points out that Chase did not take many photos of Lawrence in Arabia but when one looks over the entire list of photos taken by Chase in Egypt, Palestine and Arabia, over five hundred photos, the only individual who is the subject of more photos is Allenby. Adding the postwar photos of Lawrence not only filled out Part Two of the travelogue, but they also provided Thomas the matinee idol image he must have wanted.

Reply by St.John Armitage, UK
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 10:30:18 -0500

Joseph Berton has provided an interesting description of the Chase photographs.

Those of Lawrence in Arabia would be an additional attraction for inclusion in Factfile. Do the Arabian photographs include the one which I mentioned in my posting of 29 January of Thomas being introduced to Faisal?

>>”Mustafa Abdoula Akaba” with Abdoula crossed out.<< = Mustafa “the gentle boy” of Seven Pillars?

It is good to see such a categorical lie given to the implication of that ridiculous caption “Lawrence would occasionally disguise himself as a gypsy woman of Syria.”

Reply by Jeremy Wilson, UK, List Moderator
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 10:30:18 -0500

Patience, please… we will get there in the end!

On the subject of captions, I have seen criticism somewhere or other of the caption in an English edition of With Lawrence in Arabia under the photo of Lawrence, Hogarth and Dawnay in Cairo, on the grounds that Hogarth is not named. I see that he is named in the US edition — presumably someone at Hutchinson thought Hogarth too unimportant to bother with in the caption…

Reply by Joe Berton, USA
Date: Mon, 08 Feb 1999 12:43:27 -0600

St. John Armitage asked if the photograph of Thomas being introduced to Faisal was included in my listing of Chase photographs taken in Arabia. It was not. I think the photo he saw was almost certainly a still from film footage taken by Chase, not a separate photograph. Stills from this film footage appear in at least two books; see Tabachnick and Matheson, Images of Lawrence, p.85, and Brown and Cave, A Touch of Genius, p. 151. The film can be seen at the Imperial War Museum and, I think, it is in the two Brown documentaries. I did not refer to any of the film taken by Chase and prefer to keep that a separate category from the still photographs. Like a number of Chase’s photographs, some of this film footage has been misidentified over the years as well. I’ll save that for a later posting.

I am sorry to say that so far in my research I have not come across any reference by Thomas or Chase indicating some ‘missing’ Lawrence film footage.

Reply by St.John Armitage, UK
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 09:24:03 -0500

Joseph Berton’s posting is clear identification of the photograph I mentioned. It is clearly a treated print of the photograph in Brown which is of the same group as the photograph in Images – the latter taken from half-left rear, the former from half right rear.

_____________________

Please note: It has always been a condition of access to this list that if someone wishes to quote from a posting, they first obtain the author’s permission. This is not just a matter of copyright law. It is also to encourage lively discussion. If people who post feel they are writing for publication beyond the list, many will remain silent.

I found very interesting the posting by St. John Armitage (the first posting in “Biographical Problems”), especially its passage on the Thomas/Lawrence relationship. I would actually like to know more about this particular subject and am now wondering what book(s) could give me the information I need, since the article by Crawford and Berton is not reliable according to St. John Armitage. A work is mentioned at the end of the article: Wilson’s “Thoughts”; could anyone give me the full reference for this? I’m also looking for a more general study of the relationships between Lawrence and the press, and perhaps of the handling by the press of Lawrence related subjects after his death. What I’m trying to do is to study, if possible, the evolution of the image given of Lawrence by the popular press (meaning not scholarly) over the years since the end of the war.

Reply by Professor Claire Keith, Marist College, USA
Posted: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 22:56:37 EST

Here are some references:

Wilson, J. “Some Thoughts on Lawrence and Lowell Thomas” in the Journal of The T.E. Lawrence Society Vol iv, n1, Fall 1994.

Hodson, Joel. Lawrence of Arabia and American Culture: The Making of a Transatlantic Legend. Greenwood Press, 1995.

Also, just perusing Phil O’Brien’s bibliography (T. E. Lawrence, a Bibliography) will give you a reliable sense of the number and nature of articles in the popular press. They can confidently be assumed to seek and perpetuate the “juicy” bits, as Jeremy’s latest experience made clear.

As for F. Crawford’s and J. Berton’s article:

You need not dismiss it as unreliable. St John Armitage’s points are valuable and well made, especially with regard to the attribution of material in Lowell Thomas’s field diaries which cannot be proven, except in a few instances, to be a mere transcription of facts volunteered by Lawrence himself. All other quotes chosen by the authors are, in my mind, presented without distortion of context and are faithful to the contents and overall “feel” of the Lowell Thomas papers. The tone of the article reflects the decision to give, vigorously, what must be construed as Lowell Thomas’s side. This accounts to some of the statements to which Mr. Armitage takes exception, and I think many people would still choose to share his feelings, just as others may reconsider their opinion of Thomas once his papers are better known.

You will find that Hodson’s book presents the same evidence of Lawrence’ cooperation with Thomas in London for photo sessions. For the record, Fred and Joe deserve the credit for finding those uncropped negatives. The vagaries of publishing caused their findings to be presented in Hodson’s book first.

Reply by Jeremy Wilson, UK, List Moderator
Posted: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 05:09:11 -0500

I think the important thing about the relationship between Lawrence and Lowell Thomas is that it should not be seen as ‘Lawrence versus Lowell Thomas’.

When Thomas came to London in 1919, he wanted to develop a successful travelogue, which was of course his source of income and – as he must quickly have realised when the show was so successful in London – potentially a huge money-spinner. Hence the change in title of the travelogue as soon as he began to grasp the British reaction.

Lawrence, for his part, at that time desperately needed press publicity to advocate the Arab cause. Therefore, at that particular moment, the publicity afforded by Thomas was a godsend to Lawrence, and Lawrence – who had lost the battle at the Peace Conference – was grateful and happy to exploit it. The publicity Lawrence gained through Thomas made possible Lawrence’s subsequent political press campaign, and the ultimate popular pressure on the British Government that took Lawrence into the Colonial Office and led to the 1921 Cairo settlement. Without the publicity created by Thomas, that might well not have happened. Churchill was neither the first nor the last politician to recognise the importance of enrolling famous and vociferous spokesmen on his side of the argument.

Where the ‘interpreters’ get it wrong is to suppose that Lawrence wanted the Thomas publicity for personal self-glorification. Like most other people, Lawrence found notoriety puzzling and intriguing, but he had little taste for it. He had already experienced adulation in a much stronger form during the entry into Damascus: read the end of the 1922 Seven Pillars: ‘From that cup I drank as deeply as any man should do, when we took Damascus, and was sated with it.’ Surely Lawrence’s entire life after 1922 is evidence that he did not seek self-glorification.

The problem I have with the Crawford-Berton article is that the whole approach seems to reflect Crawford’s personal background as an expert on, and personal admirer of, Richard Aldington. Given this background, it may be natural that Crawford tends to see Thomas as a man exploited and abused by Lawrence in the interests of personal vanity. As a trained research-historian (which I gather Crawford is not), I find that approach wholly inconsistent with the facts. Lawrence and Thomas used each other, and for a time both men were pleased with the results. Unfortunately, Thomas’s use for Lawrence outlived Lawrence’s use for Thomas. At that point, Thomas continued (he was making money), but Lawrence felt an increasingly desperate need to escape from the monster that he had helped to create. The rest is history.

I shall think better of Crawford if and when when he ceases to use his writings on topics such as Thomas as a vehicle for attempts to vindicate the conclusions reached by Richard Aldington. On the evidence of this article, we can expect more of the same, and I therefore deplore the fact that a book about a man as influential as Lowell Thomas is being written by someone who cannot see beyond that kind of axe-grinding.

Reply by Joe Berton, USA
0180) Date: 15/01/98 17:34:55

I would like to respond to points made recently regarding an article I co-authored with Fred Crawford, “How Well Did Lowell Thomas Know Lawrence of Arabia?” (English Literature in Transition 1880-1920 Vol 39:3 1996)

The Lowell Thomas-Lawrence relationship is a fascinating one. We should be able to agree that each man had a great effect on the other, an effect that directly or indirectly would shadow them for the rest of their lives. Thomas, creating the Lawrence Legend, would create the public demand to know more about Lawrence. Lawrence, for his own reasons, cooperated with Thomas to some degree.

Our article makes use of original diaries, notes, documents, photos and negatives found in the Lowell Thomas archive at Marist College. Some of this material was first shared by Janet Riesman with Jeremy Wilson, myself and others. Jeremy made use of this material in two articles for the T. E. Lawrence Society Journal. I pursued the archives interested primarily in Harry Chase and his wonderful photos of Arabia and Lawrence, taken while working with Lowell Thomas. Fred Crawford was doing a complete survey of the entire archive in preparation for a biography of Lowell Thomas. We found information in the archive that was extremely important and should not be overlooked by anyone interested in the Thomas-Lawrence relationship. Much of this we shared in our article.

The Marist material provides us with exact dates Lowell Thomas was in Arabia. It shows us that Lawrence and Thomas met many times during the fall and winter of 1919. And what I think most interesting, it shows that Lawrence posed for additional photographs for Harry Chase during that time as well. These photographs of Lawrence in Arab robes are some of the best known of him and would make their appearance publicly as hand colored lantern slides in the Thomas travelogue and in the Strand articles of Thomas’s starting in January 1920.

Why Lawrence would don his Arab robes and pose for additional photos is a good question to ask. We don’t speculate to the reasons in our article. I tend to think of it as another example of Lawrence being curious about what an artist would produce, in this case Harry Chase. He had already posed for McBey in Damascus, John and others in Paris and would be a willing subject for many artists and photographers he admired. What he did do by posing again for Chase, this time in post war London, not Arabia, is to give us the strongest visual images of “Lawrence of Arabia”.

I am currently working on a project about Harry Chase and his photographs. This has involved not only doing research at the Marist archive, but the photo collections at the Imperial War Museum, The University of Texas and the Bodleian Library as well. This summer I plan to visit a number of these sites again. I’ll keep the readers informed of my progress.

Reply by MDM, an American subscriber
Posted: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 12:29:18 -0500

During the 50s and 60s Lowell Thomas did a series of TV programs about such things as his trip to Tibet. Does one of these programs have Lawrence as a subject? if so, is that program available on video-tape? Or was his lecture ever recorded on video-tape?

Reply by MC, location unidentified
Posted: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 13:09:27 -0400

I would like to know if Lowell Thomas presented his TEL conferences in the 60’s, taking advantage of the just released movie? Maybe there is a filmed record?

Reply by Professor Claire Keith, Marist College, USA
Posted: Sun, 01 Feb 1998 23:38:59 EST

Mr Armitage is right, of course, in stating that the only way to draw a full and valid conclusion is by looking at all the complete sources. Lowell Thomas’s diaries make for wonderful reading, as does the varied correspondence preserved in his archives. Good progress is being made in making the Thomas archive public, with several studies in progress including the book of Chase photographs by Joseph Berton.

This will help address the many excellent questions that Mr. Armitage has raised, such as the one about the Dawnay/Hogarth/Lawrence photograph, which I have pondered myself and have yet to answer in a satisfactory manner.

Joe, your turn?

Reply by Joe Berton, USA
Posted: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 13:02:14 -0600

Regarding the Chase photos of Lawrence, Hogarth and Dawnay at the Arab Bureau Headquarters. In Images of Lawrence, p.114, Chris Matheson narrows down this series of shots to be taken in May, 1918.

Lawrence’s movement diary, Appendex II in Seven Pillars, states he was in Cairo on May7th. The next entry states Sinai, May 14th. In a letter printed in Home Letters, dated May 12,1918, Lawrence writes he arrived in Cairo the night before and is spending another night there. Chase and Thomas were also in Cairo at this time. They left Akaba for Suez on April 10th. Thomas then proceeded to Luxor and Khartoum and was back to Cairo by early May. In Cairo, all prints and film was processed and had to be passed by the British Army censor. This was to take a couple of weeks.

I have not yet come across any contemporary evidence to pin down this exact photo shoot but it seems most likely these are Chase’s photos. The glass plates of the negatives exist at Marist and they seem to have the flavor of other Chase photos. Also when I have found these particular prints in archives, they almost always credit Thomas or Chase. There were three photos taken during this session. Portions of all three have been reproduced before. In the Century edition of With Lawrence in Arabia, facing. page 33 is a cropped version showing Lawrence with the background brushed out. This is from a horizontal print that includes Hogarth looking directly at the camera and Alan Dawnay on the right. Opposite page 241 is another cropped version minus Dawnay. See Images of Lawrence, p.114, for a fuller view of this shot. Also reproduced there is the third shot of Lawrence alone. This has been cropped also for the full print shows more of a background.

Thomas’s letters from this time are at Marist but offer little for exact names and places. These wartime letters were subject to censorship and some show words blacked out or parts cut out.

Reply by H.St.J.B. Atmitage, UK
Posted: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 12:21:52 -0500

Thank you. The fact that the plates exist at Marist seems to remove any doubt that the photograph was by Harry Chase, especially as the coincidence of Lawrence, Chase and Thomas in Cairo during May 1918 appears confirmed by the Thomas records. Normally censorship did not affect dates of letters so it should be possible to reconstruct Thomas’s itinerary from the detail in his letters.

Reply by Jeremy Wilson, UK, List Moderator
Posted: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 14:49:47 -0500

TEL to Charlotte Shaw 19.3.24

“Lowell Thomas, author of With Lawrence in Arabia: is the American who made my vulgar reputation; a well-intentioned intensely crude and pushful fellow. He has been threatening this book about me for years. I fear it will be awful: and yet I can’t imagine it beastly enough to make me publish the truth” [i.e. Seven Pillars]

TEL to Charlotte Shaw 26.3.24

“Lowell Thomas. Not to be condemned like B[arrie] and B[ennett] and B[elloc]. He’s a born vulgarian, who does the best that is in him. If his victim was other than myself I’d praise him. But it rankles in my mind to be called proud names for qualities I’d hate to possess… or for acts of which I’m heartily ashamed.”

Reply by GH, an American subscriber
Posted 9 Feb 1998.

Lowell Thomas (in defense of)

Lawrence categorized Lowell Thomas as “intensely crude” and a “born vulgarian”.

While Thomas’s treatment of Lawrence in lecture and book was obviously designed for “the masses”, Lawrence’s categorization seems, considering Thomas’s accomplishments, both superficial and inaccurate. Thomas had a distinguished career as a traveller and explorer, writer, broadcaster, and developer of Cinerama. (See his autobiographies- Good Evening, Everybody and So Long, Until Tomorrow).

Of course, most of this was after the date of Lawrence’s quoted letters, and Lawrence was reacting, naturally, to Thomas’s unwelcome apotheosis of himself (Lawrence).

Lawrence, on the other hand, could have been (and has been) characterized as a pretentious masochistically neurotic aesthete manqué with occasional flashes of genius.

Reply by Jeremy Wilson, UK, List Moderator
Posted: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 08:56:41 -0500

TEL to Charlotte Shaw, 4.7.25

>>So glad you felt the vulgarity of Lowell Thomas’ book. It’s horrible: reeks of it… and no criticism I’ve seen yet refers to it.<<

- – - – - – -

All other questions apart, Lawrence’s remarks about Lowell Thomas seem to me to be the completely predictable reaction of an educated Edwardian Englishman to a popular American journalist of the 1920s.

Moreover, it is scarcely surprising that Lawrence, who was at the time sweating blood over his ‘literary’ account of the Arab Revolt, should find With Lawrence in Arabia appallingly vulgar. In the original sense of the word (still used in French) Thomas’s book is just that: a popularisation.

In the last quotes I posted, Lawrence did not condemn popularisation per se (though nothing in his letters suggests that he had any taste for it): he just bemoaned the fact that in this case he himself was the victim.

My point in posting these comments is to underline the huge differences that there were between Thomas and Lawrence. To say that Lawrence liked Thomas is not to say that they were actually friends, or indeed that there was any potential basis for a friendship. It is to say that, in their dealings, Lawrence found Thomas likeable.

In reality, there can be few professional journalists of any merit who do not, as a matter of principle, invest heavily in making themselves likeable to potential sources of information. I have plenty of experience of that, because of Lawrence’s reflected news-interest. I frequently receive telephone calls from journalists, all of whom do their best to be completely charming. The reason, as I know full well, is that they want something. In such a relationship it is the motivation and loyalty of the journalist, not the information-source, that is suspect.

I think it is completely wrong to postulate that Lawrence and Thomas were ever friends in any normal sense of the word. For a brief period of time they had reason to collaborate: Lawrence because he desperately needed publicity, and Thomas because he wanted a good story. Their relationship did not last beyond that collaboration.

The collaboration was successful in its original aims, and its consequences went on being successful for Thomas. However, these same consequences were very unfortunate for Lawrence. Naturally, he resented Thomas’s continuing exploitation of his story. To suggest that his later remarks about Thomas were in some way disloyal is absurd. Real loyalty never existed, on one side or the other. Had Thomas felt a loyalty towards Lawrence, he would have turned his attention to other topics, rather than milking the Lawrence story for every cent it was worth, year after year.

Yet Lawrence knew how important Thomas had been to him in 1919-20, and he never denied that. What he resented was the continuing attention. Was it really necessary for Thomas to publish an English edition of With Lawrence in Arabia?

Then as now, it is nonsense to talk of morality in popular journalism: no one should expect it. When Lawrence began to make use of Thomas to further his political aims in 1919-20, he was playing with fire and he should have known it. He later paid the price.

People cite A. W. Lawrence’s friendly contacts with Thomas after TEL’s death. No surprise there: A. W. Lawrence set a very high value (to my mind astonishingly high) on his brother’s popular reputation. Thomas was useful to him, too.

None of this detracts in the least from Thomas’s reputation as a popular journalist and presenter. His success in those domains speaks for itself. The point I am making is that popular journalism has its own brand of non-morality. To overlook that, when considering the Lawrence-Thomas relationship, is a mistake that exactly parallels Lawrence’s, if he ever thought that Thomas would be sufficiently loyal to abandon a money-spinning story.

Reply by RA(2) an American subscriber
Posted: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 13:13:16 -0600 (CST)

It must be remembered that, at the time, Americans on the whole were thought to be “crude” and “vulgarians.” This thought was still mildly evident in the early 1970’s, as was my experience in boarding school. Then, we were referred to as “uncouth philistines” into whom manners, diction, and general mildness and pleasantness required to be beaten.

It was nothing personal.

Reply by Harold Orlans, USA
Posted: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 18:29:46 -0800

Lowell Thomas, whom I heard often on the radio and in newsreels, had a mellifluous voice and the smooth, rolling delivery of a highly experienced announcer. I dislike his unctuous, cloying writing on Lawrence and imagine that his lectures had the same quality. But the fact that prominent members of the British establishment, not to mention a big chunk of the public, lapped up his lectures and writing can hardly be held against Thomas. Members of the government, high society, and the royal family paid to come and mightily enjoyed what they heard and saw. If Thomas was in bad taste, they revelled in it.

Thomas’s role in prompting Lawrence and Graves’s publications should be noted. Discussing what he should do about Seven Pillars or an abridged version in a July 1923 letter to Hogarth, Lawrence says, “…Lowell Thomas lurks still in the background, and if his book is the fulsome thing I expect, he will force the truth out of me. It might be better to get my blow in first.” (DG, p. 429) I don’t suggest that Thomas was a major factor governing the decisions to publish a limited unabridged edition and the abridgement, but insofar as he was a factor at all, he served to encourage some publication by Lawrence.

The prospective publication of Thomas’s The Boys’ Life of Colonel Lawrence (published Sept. 1927 in England) was evidently significant in Jonathan Cape’s decision to commission Graves’s biography (initially conceived as a book for boys) and, thereby, to draw some of the market from Thomas.

Reply by MDM, an American subscriber
Posted: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 05:16:42 -0500

Purists always seem to put down that which does meet their high standards. In my own field of the study of late antiquity, I, like most scholars, am the same and would argue that no one would do serious work in the field without knowing the appropriate ancient languages. I wonder if TEL would have been the legend we know him as, or as famous as he is, unless it were for Lowell Thomas. Sure Thomas had his failings; I, for one, have enjoyed him and his image of Lawrence since 1960, although he had his limitations. I would submit that Lawrence, at least in the general public’s eyes, would have been another faceless officer who served in World War I if it had not been for LT who created the legend of the “Uncrowned King of Arabia.” So, although we may carp at Thomas, we really owe him a debt of gratitude. I wonder (and I don’t know the answer to this one) whether Count von Luckner (the Sea Devil), another of Thomas’s favorite subjects, has achieved the same fame as TEL? Just a few comments.

Reply by H. St.J.B. Armitage, UK
Posted: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 07:10:18 -0500

Two points:

a. Why single out the British? Thomas’s “unctious and cloying” portrayal appears to have had a similar effect internationally not least in America where it took off and where – as elsewhere – it probably held sway with the general public until superseded by Lean’s film.

b. Given the long history of the Seven Pillars gestation, to consider With Lawrence in Arabia as an encouragement to Lawrence’s publication is surely to over-rate both it and the significance of Lawrence’s remark to Hogarth. That was made in 1923, before the Thomas biography. He did not attempt to get his blow in first, nor did he refer to it after publication, in connection with the subscribers’ SP or Revolt.

Further reply by H. St.J. B. Armitage, UK
Posted Sat, 2 May 1998 01:28:15 -0400

Those subscribers who are members of the T.E.Lawrence society should be well pleased with the current issue of the Journal with Part 1 of Claire Keith’s presentation of the Lowell Thomas papers. Although she acknowledges that “some personal perspective inevitably colours any editing process” this stricture is hardly applicable in her case and she appears well on her way to letting “Lowell Thomas speak for himself”. He does – and in more creditable fashion than some of those who have sought to put his case.

This instalment includes a short general description of the archive, a biography of Thomas’s early life, the genesis and promotion of the Lawrence lectures, Thomas’s interest in things Arabian and, after Lawrence’s death, his “Maintaining the Legend”. The clarity and balance of her presentation whet the appetite for the second instalment in the next issue of the Journal. One blemish occurs when she drags into the time-capsule of the archive some psycho-babble diagnosis which is out of place, time, subject and nature, of the two “innocuous” [her word] photographs she describes. A Mapplethorpe Harry Chase was not!

Claire Keith says that “the biography of Lowell Thomas now in progress will offer a much needed frame in which to continue the debate on the….two men.” That may be so if the author offers the story in as detached a fashion as she has done to date – a frame on which to continue the debate rather than a frame owing more to the author’s opinion than the Thomas papers.

Reply by Professor Claire Keith, Marist College, USA
Posted: Fri, 08 May 1998 22:31:34 EDT

I wish to thank very much St.John Armitage and Jeremy Wilson for kindly taking the time to comment favorably on the first part of “The Lowell Thomas papers.” This is a much appreciated encouragement at this time, as I am progressing on Part Two. I do want to take the opportunity to remind the readership of the Journal of something I too easily forget myself: that we owe the TELS Journal to the knowledge, talent and endless unpaid work of its editors: first and for some years, Jeremy, who set the standards that we all gladly strive to meet today; and since 1995, Editor in Chief Philip Kerrigan and the editorial committee. I can testify to the time Philip has spent on this particular piece, from the unspeakably tedious disk reformatting, to the tactful editing of gallicized syntax, to the minute verification of facts and references, to the weeks of “last minute final changes” from this anxious writer, to the selection of illustrations and galley proofs preparations. At market value, this could be a two-months cruise to Aqaba and Muscat and back, in luxury class…

To return to the article:

St John Armitage objected firmly to the intrusion of literary criticism jargon in one paragraph. I accept his criticism and plead my case: formal schooling in academic Lit Crit is as ruthless and irreversible a ‘Mint’ as the uniformed one of greater fame. One is stamped for life!

Jeremy expressed the hope to hear more and in more precise details of the London years. It has indeed been a calculated decision to leave this inquiry untouched until Part 2. The issue is a fudge; the truth is that, as suggestive as Mrs. Thomas’s diaries and letters may be, there is frustratingly little dated evidence to assess the extent of the visits Lawrence actually paid to the Thomas in London. Any hope to ever gain a full “chapter and verse” will have to begin with the disclosure of every bit of documentation which actually does survive — a humbling task for a researcher faced with several thousands of folders of onion-skin duplicate of correspondence, each of which could be hiding the one precious misplaced old letter which would complete the puzzle. Thomas’s filing system left a lot to be desired and it cannot be excluded that a 1919 document could have landed in a 1949 file.

It is this paucity of irrefutably dated material, both from the London years and in the Palestine diaries themselves, which made me think that readers would be in a better position to judge them with a general portrait of Lowell Thomas as a background.

In approximately three weeks, the collection will be moved into storage while Marist builds its new Library and a Special Collection Room to house the papers. Until this move, I will continue my wishful sifting in search of that elusive last bit of perfect evidence which would permit me to write the piece as I ambition it.

In parting, one of Lawrence’s inimitable self-evaluations (for Heaven’s sake, I just love it!). Writing to Edward Garnett (26.VIII.22) of the Titanic books The Karamazovs, Zarathustra and Moby Dick and of his ambition to make an English fourth, he writes suavely: “You will observe that modesty comes out more in the performance than in the aim!”

Reply by AWM, an American subscriber
Posted: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 15:38:19 -0400

This in the NYTimes Book Review, Aug. 2, p. 9:

In the review of Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder by John Miller, it states that Wilder’s writing career was influenced by her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, who “was also a ghostwriter for…Lowell Thomas, among others….”

Lowell Thomas used ghostwriters? Were any of his writings about TEL ghostwritten?

________________________

Please note: It has always been a condition of access to this list that if someone wishes to quote from a posting, they first obtain the author’s permission. This is not just a matter of copyright law. It is also to encourage lively discussion. If people who post feel they are writing for publication beyond the list, many will remain silent.

My interest in Lawrence derives from his pre-war background in archaeology, and particularly in his relationship with C. Leonard Woolley. As an archaeologist, I was familiar with Woolley’s work long before I learned that Lawrence served as his assistant for three seasons (1912-1914) at Carchemish, the ancient capitol of the Hittites on the Euphrates in Syria.

Mack, in his biography of Lawrence, asserts that the two “were not personally close, and although they served together in Cairo during the war seem not to have corresponded thereafter.” I put the question to those who have had the great fortune of exploring Lawrence’s correspondence at the Bodleian: Is Mack’s implication of a near-total absence of correspondence correct? I’d be curious to know what letters between them may exist in unpublished collections. I’ve found no letters between the two men in Lawrence’s published correspondence, and in the biographies, only one clear reference: in 1921 Lawrence provided Woolley with slides taken at Carchemish, according to Woolley’s biographer, H.V.F. Winstone.

Personally close or not, Woolley and Lawrence made a fabulous team at Carchemish. The story of their collaboration there is one of great adventure. Woolley tells the tale well in two popularized accounts Dead Towns and Living Men (1920) and Spadework in Archaeology (1953). (He perhaps tells it too well — Lawrence would grumble that Woolley had made a “circus” out of memories TEL cherished).

Although eight years younger than Woolley and a far less experienced excavator, Lawrence closed the gap with his sheer exuberance, his skill as a photographer and draftsman, his knowledge of Arabic and local cultures, his fearlessness under pressure, and most importantly his amazing ability to manage a rough-and-tumble workforce of up to 200 gun-toting Arabs and Kurds.

Perhaps I shouldn’t question Mack — I’m not, after all, a psychologist. But I am an archaeologist. I know from experience that an archaeological dig, especially one in a remote area, fosters a unique kind of “closeness” among team members. The participants, through working and living together elbow to elbow for weeks and months, become all too familiar with one another’s strengths and weaknesses. A dig owes its success not only to the individual capabilities of team members, but also to each’s ability to live with their fellows’ faults.

The work at Carchemish was a success. There is little evidence of animosity between them: only the kind of work-a-day quibbles one would expect. Lawrence in letters home poked mild fun at Woolley. Among Woolley’s pet peeves, recorded in his contribution to TEL By His Friends, were Lawrence’s occasional lapses in notetaking. Jeremy Wilson points out (in his biography of Lawrence) that Woolley’s essay contains an undercurrent of antipathy toward Lawrence that sounds for the all the world to me like the surfacing of long-festering field camp grudges.

After the war, Woolley wrote to Kenyon at the British Museum, rejecting Lawrence’s request to return with him to Carchemish. Quite politely, he let it be known that Lawrence’s well-known views re the French in Syria would create political complications for the dig. Winstone also suggests (on tenuous evidence) that Woolley was offended by TEL’s role in the surrender at Kut. These postwar events aside, it seems to me that Woolley, through close association with TEL at Carchemish, probably reached the conclusion that his young assistant lacked the single-mindedness of purpose to become a serious scholar. Even at Carchemish, the two men were already following separate paths to different destinies. The war increased the distance between them, and for whatever reason, neither appears to have ever attempted to close the gap.

Incidentally, Woolley’s war-time adventures, although hardly the makings for a David Lean film, were not altogether unexciting. Assigned to coastline surveillance and contraband interception in the eastern Mediterranean, he seems to have pictured himself as something of a brigand, cruising around in a commandeered yacht. Taken prisoner after the yacht was sunk by a mine, Woolley spent the duration of the war in Turkish POW camps, honing his lecturing skills to “captive” audiences.

- -

Further comment by JA:

Thomas, TEL, and “vulgar” books

Lowell Thomas was not the only author to raise Lawrence’s hackles.

Compare: TEL to Charlotte Shaw: “So glad you felt the vulgarity of Lowell Thomas’ book. It’s horrible: reeks of it… and no criticism I’ve seen yet refers to it.”

With: TEL to Robert Graves, 6/28/27

“…very untruthful, which is not a deadly sin: but a very vulgar book, too. Carchemish was a miracle, and he turns it into a play” (quoted in Jeremy Wilson’s biography of TEL, p. 130).

This was Lawrence’s reaction to Dead Towns and Living Men, by C. Leonard Woolley, published in 1920 (Oxford University Press). Obviously, TEL did not reserve the word “vulgar” for Americans, because Woolley was a British archaeologist — son of an Anglican minister, Oxford-educated. By 1927, Woolley was quite famous for his discoveries at Ur in southern Mesopotamia. In 1920, when he published Dead Towns, he was a rising star in archaeological circles. From 1912-1914, he worked (with TEL as an assistant) excavating the site of Carchemish, on the Euphrates River, very near the present Turkey/Syria border. Written for a popular audience, Dead Towns is a lively account of Woolley’s adventures as an archaeologist, with over half the book set in northern Syria, recounting adventures many of which he shared with Lawrence.

When Woolley published Dead Towns, Lawrence was in the midst of writing Seven Pillars. When Jeremy Wilson wrote (to this list, 2/10/98) about Lawrence’s reaction to Thomas’ With Lawrence in Arabia, he could just as easily have been describing Lawrence’s probable reaction to Dead Towns

“… it is scarcely surprising that Lawrence, who was at the time sweating blood over his ‘literary’ account of the Arab Revolt, should find With Lawrence in Arabia appallingly vulgar. In the original sense of the word (still used in French) Thomas’s book is just that: a popularisation.”

Woolley’s book was every bit a popularization of his adventures with TEL at Carchemish. Some parts, indeed, read like fairly bad pulp fiction. For example, writing of what transpired when the provincial government in Biridjik (Turkey) seized the documents authorizing his dig at Carchemish, Woolley wrote:

“Leveling a revolver at the Cadi [judge], I said, “You will not leave the room alive…unless I get those papers. The judge dropped back into his seat like a rabbit… Lawrence,” I said, “bolt into the next room and hold up the Kammaikam [governor]: I bet the old brute’s got the papers himself.”

Lawrence darted through the door: the public and the assessors and the Clerk of the Court jammed in the doorway for an instant and then melted away…. I lowered my weapon… The judge looked intensely relieved…. Lawrence reappeared. “I’ve got the papers,” he announced, “the blighter had them all in his own desk!”

Passages like this one, with all their pistol-waving, jingoistic bluster, must have grated on Lawrence. For one thing, Lawrence was (or had been, or would be) struggling with the powerful scene in which he places a pistol to the head of a friend to end his suffering. To have his pre-war friend and colleague Woolley now dashing off tales about pulling revolvers on this or that recalcitrant Ottoman must have hurt and offended him.

Lawrence felt himself the victim of Thomas’ book, but In the case of Dead Towns, however, the victim was not Lawrence himself but rather his memories of Carchemish. As his letter to Graves implies, TEL regarded Carchemish as a golden age, the happiest time in his life. Therein lay Woolley’s transgression.

TEL and Woolley enjoyed a long and apparently happy collaboration at Carchemish. Considering the length of time they worked together, and their differences, they got along quite well. But their collaboration only lasted as long as their tenure together in northern Syria. They did not remain life long friends. Like Thomas and TEL, TEL and Woolley had entirely different concepts of life; their lives took entirely different directions. They shared a grand and glorious experience at Carchemish, but the experience meant something entirely different to both men. In later years, they “used” the experience in completely different ways. For Woolley, Carchemish was a source of whopping good stories (and he reaped scientific acclaim for the work as well); for Lawrence, it was his Camelot, a dream-time shattered forever by war.

Those of you interested in the Thomas-Lawrence relationship (especially re: friendship, loyalty) might find some interesting parallels in the Woolley-Lawrence relationship. I’m not familiar enough with the former to try drawing those parallels myself.

- -

Comment by St. John Armitage:

JA’s posting raises interesting points, not least contemporary use of “vulgar” a word used less to-day than in the first half of the century now that the vulgar is accepted as normal. It is quite likely that Lawrence applied it to Woolley’s book because he felt Woolley’s account vulgarised day-to-day events at the expense of their archaeological work; in applying it to Lowell Thomas, he was suggesting an uncultured person rather than a rude one. After all, Graves wrote that Lawrence could look “even vulgar”.

I find no parallel between the professional association – and early friendship – of Lawrence and Woolley with the Thomas-Lawrence relationship in which each seems to have used the other to a different degree for his own ends. As for the former, while their work together at Carchemish barely covered eleven months of the three and a half years’ span of the dig, it seems to have been fairly reported by Lawrence at the time and uncontradicted by Woolley over twenty years later. It suggests an element of personal friendship which is less-marked – if not absent from – the Thomas-Lawrence relationship.

JA might have read too much into Jeremy Wilson’s references to Woolley and Lawrence. In doing so his interpretation of Woolley’s “transgression” inflates the latter’s account, in Dead Towns and Living Men, of his confrontation with the Turkish governor as much as Woolley appears to inflate the situation described by Lawrence in his letters to Leeds:

“Passages like this one, with all their pistol-waving, jingoistic bluster, must have grated on Lawrence. . . . To have his pre-war friend and colleague Woolley now dashing off tales about pulling revolvers on this or that recalcitrant Ottoman must have hurt and offended him.”

Why? Lawrence himself had written:

“O Leeds we are here and enjoying ourselves vastly. Woolley is a most excellent person. You should have seen him . . . regretting to the governor . . .that he was forced to shoot all soldiers who tried to interrupt our work . . . You should have seen Woolley . . . charged down on them [the police], drawing his revolver . . . he pulled his pistol and shot at it [a pigeon] . . . until it died of disgust . . .”

and to his mother:

“pleasant experience . . . breaking down the door of the government antika store . . .”

JA’s views of Woolley’s book fails to observe the balance displayed in the curate’s reply to the bishop about his bad breakfast egg “Oh no My Lord! it is good in parts”. So with Dead Towns; while Woolley does not match Hogarth’s The Wandering Scholar for powers of description of his travels, where is there a more evocative description of Carchemish than Woolley’s? Set against Campbell Thompson’s account and Lawrence’s letters, Woolley’s description of events would be better termed dramatisation than bad pulp fiction.

- -

Posted by AWM, an American subscriber

I still think JA has a good point or two about the Woolley/Lawrence relationship.

St. John Armitage says JA may have read too much into Jeremy Wilson’s account of the Woolley/Lawrence relationship. Yet, by reading Jeremy Wilson’s account, it would be difficult not to conclude that there was some friction between Woolley and Lawrence.

Wilson devotes eight paragraphs describing the negative parts of Woolley’s essay about Lawrence in TEL by His Friends, and explaining possible reasons for Woolley’s attitudes. Wilson writes, “Woolley gave an account of the carvings which is incorrect, and salacious in its insinuation.” Also, “Woolley’s essay…has a slightly hostile ring throughout…”

There are more comments in this vein. Wilson ends the section on Woolley and Lawrence with one paragraph (only!) about how the two did indeed get along just fine. Perhaps he does have plenty of evidence to prove that point but chose not to include it in his book. But with one paragraph claiming “they were friends,” after eight paragraphs of “Woolley made horrible insinuations about Lawrence,” one can’t help but read into the references that the Lawrence /Woolley relationship was strained.

Also, I still think JA is right when he wrote that Woolley’s Carchemish passages must have grated on Lawrence. Mr. Armitage quotes to the contrary from Lawrence’s Carchemish letters. But the “Lawrence of Carchemish” who wrote those boyish, playful letters was a very different person to the post-war Lawrence of 1920, when Woolley wrote his book. Woolley’s dramatization seemed more like a melodramatization to me, and I don’t think it would have appealed to Lawrence’s sober state of mind (or his subtle sense of humor).

And surely Lawrence must have been a little suspicious that Woolley chose to write his book so soon after Lowell Thomas’ success with his show?

- -

Comment by Jeremy Wilson:

I stand by what I wrote. I don’t think that Woolley’s later achievements as a field archaeologist should unduly colour consideration of his relationship with Lawrence. There were clearly tensions between the two, not all of which I saw reason to speculate upon in the biography. This said, they made a good partnership and would, I am sure, have carried on at Carchemish together for more seasons, had that been possible.

–

Comment by St. John Armitage:
I agree with AM that by reading Jeremy Wilson’s account it would be difficult not to conclude that there was some friction between Woolley and Lawrence. Indeed, that conclusion alone proves my point. I was not questioning Jeremy Wilson’s criticism but drawing attention to JA’s somewhat one-sided approach to the Lawrence-Woolley relationship.

But AM has gone further than JA in citing the quantity of Jeremy Wilson’s interpretation of Woolley’s contribution to TEL by his Friends as evidence disproving the quality of a single paragraph. The latter summarises – emphasises even – the personal relationship at Carchemish between Lawrence and Woolley within which any ill-feeling was contained. By merely focusing on his criticism of the Woolley essay, she appears to ignore Woolley’s own evidence e.g.:

“gladly fell in with his suggestion that I should keep Lawrence”. [and nowhere did Woolley voice regret at that decision}

"he did it in his own way"

"if I groused at all he would grin"

"the charge was quite unfounded " [rumours about the Dahoum - Lawrence relatioship]

“I had not the insight to see then the genius that was in him . . . unusually gifted and remarkably lovable”

So, as Jeremy Wilson concluded, “they worked alongside one another very happily . . . there is no note of personal hostility “.

Lawrence letters to Leeds and the latter’s comments are important to any study of the Lawrence-Woolley relationship. The two men complemented each other and their companionship is attested by the visitors’ observations which, as well as their own words, provide most evidence of their relationship albeit AM questions that evidence because Wilson “chose not to include” it in his “single paragraph”. However, the main cause of dissent between them, over distribution of the Carchemish artefacts, was as the latter says later “smoothed over by Hogarth”. Views expressed in (much) later years when there was no longer contact between them (especially those of Woolley which only became public after Lawrence’s death) only qualify, do not constitute, a relationship.

Woolley’s argument against Lawrence returning to Carchemish after the war has been presented by some as a desire not to have him along. But, against that has to be set the facts that Woolley had asked if Lawrence would be returning to his first love and, secondly but perhaps more importantly, he clearly saw that the extent of Lawrence’s involvement in Arabian afffairs as an adversary of the French put his return to Carchemish out of the question. By the time Woolley had moved on to Ur, it was clear that Lawrence had put archaeology behind him. However, while there is no evidence that Lawrence ever put his mentor, Hogarth, or Woolley, his field director and colleague, to the test of helping him return to that profession, after the former’s death he wrote to Charlotte Shaw “but I always thought that if I ever went back to living I’d be able to link up with him again.”

One fact that is clear is that the first reference to differences between the two (apart from the Carchemish artefacts) arises in Lawrence to Graves about Woolley’s book. But less than a third of the latter’s narrative includes references to Lawrence (all of which are Lawrence of Carchemish not Arabia) and there is no record of Lawrence taking exception to it until 1927. I see his criticism then as more of a caution to Graves against drawing on Woolley as a primary source for his biography. Later in the same year, prompted by Hogarth’s death, he expressed his concern at the idea that Woolley might succeed the latter as Keeper of the the Ashmolean. I do not think that concern stemmed either from the book or their time at Carchemish, but from tales of the Ur dig which might have had undue influence on Lawrence – but that requires deeper research on Woolley and that dig.

I am rather astonished by AM’s depreciation of the clarity and content of Lawrence’s Carchemish letters as “boyish, playful”, even more so by her implication that the post-war Lawrence would have shed his pre-war views of (or sense of humour about) his life and his companions there which is not borne out by his post-war letters.

AM’s final premise is unsound – if not false. I can find no contemporary references linking the Lawrence of Dead Towns and Living Men with Thomas’s Lawrence of Arabia, nor grounds for thinking that Thomas’s show prompted Woolley to write his book. Although it was not published until 1920, Woolley completed that collection of essays while a prisoner of war. He was fully occupied in Syria from mid-1919 until mid-1920 so would have escaped the force of the Thomas publicity, of which he could hardly have been aware before September 1919. It is highly unlikely that negotiations with the OUP and subsequent requirements all followed the Thomas promotion. The suggestion that Lawrence “must have been suspicious” of Woolley’s motives is equally flawed not least because his 1927 references to the book mention neither suspicion or motives. But the suggestion also ignores the fact that, in addition to his political duties, Woolley was engaged in resuming his archaeological career and publication of a popular book was a natural step along that road most likely put in hand before he left England (as, for different reason, was the account of his prisoner of war experiences).

–

Comment by JA, USA:

What’s missing in our discussion of the Woolley-Lawrence relationship is more of Woolley’s side of the story. Woolley’s correspondence, to my knowledge, has never been published. His “home letters” from Carchemish would be very enlightening – do such letters exist? Also, Woolley revised and expanded Dead Towns and Living Men twice after its first publication in 1920: once in 1931, again in 1951(or 2). I’ve only access to the 1950s edition: a comparison of the three, not to mention an examination of manuscripts and drafts with Woolley’s editing — would probably provide some clues about Woolley’s side of the matter. But do such materials exist?

Is the Arabic epithet, El-Orens, merely a mispronunciation of “Lawrence” or does it have a meaning in the Arabic language?

- -

Comment by St. John Armitage

Lawrence’s name has no Arabic meaning.

As Lawrence himself wrote, he was addressed as “Auruns”, “Aurans”, “Runs” and “Lurens”. The use of different vowels and diphthongs are merely transliterations to help convey what was heard. The sound of the consonants would not differ, but in cases where the “l” is omitted would likely be due to an Arab’s hearing – and use – of an unfamiliar western name.

Arab writers simply use “lurans” or /”laurans” (the consonants of both words remain the same) not the Arabic equivalent of El-Orans or El-Lorans.

Those versions of his spoken name almost certainly stem from westerners’ unfamiliarity with the sound of the Arabic. From hearing “ya laurans” – Oh! Lawrence” – as “yal-orans”. Even plain “laurans” might have seemed to have been pronounced with a faint prosthetic “e” – “elorans”. Such distinctions could be better explained by voice mail.

A more accurate transcription of their hearing of his spoken name would be eLorens, the e being an almost indiscernible prosthetic.

- – -

Comment by JR, an Israeli subscriber

I would like to add to St. John Armitage’s explanation that the prefix Al or El in Arabic means ‘the’. When the Arabs hear Al or El or L, they assume that it is not an integral part of the word or the name. Thus, when the Arabs encountered the name Alexander they assumed that it is actually Al-Eksander and dropped the Al. Alexander later was naturalized in Arabic in the from of Iskandar. Many of you will recognize the Al in words of Arabic origin such as Algebra, Almanac, Alcohol, Alchemy and Admiral which is a twisted version of Amir Al Bahr (the command of the sea) or even Arsenal which comes from the Arabic Dar Al-Sinaah (the house of industry).

So Arabs who heard the name Lawrence took it for “Orens” with the Al prefix.

- -

Comment by St. John Armitage

JR has further explained how Arabs might have dropped the L/el/al to address Lawrence as Orens or “Aurans” as Lawrence himself noted. However, whereas Al-exander has been arabicised as Iskandar, Lawrence has not been arabicised only transliterated – without prefix or prosthetic – as Lurans/Laurans (depending on vowel or dipthong used).

But all these linguistic interpretations only touch on how El-Orens could have been used orally rather than how or when that form was adopted. I think it was first used in one of the popular fiction accounts, but not one of the better known. Gurney Slade, for instance, used “Lorens”, the Korda screenplay “El Lurens”, the Lean screenplay “Au-rens”. There is no evidence of Arab usage in speech or literature.

- -

Comment by Jeremy Wilson

I half remember that Lawrence told someone how the Arabs addressed him, and we may also have records in the memoirs of contemporaries (? Young, Rolls, Stirling, Kirkbride, Auda’s son on TV?). I don’t have time right now to check these things, but if someone can recall them please post.

- – -

Comment by Harold Orlans, USA

“…over the local cries and the shrilling of women came the measured roar of men’s voices, chanting, ‘Feisal, Nasir, Shukri, Urens’, in waves…”

Seven Pillars, 1935 text, 1.xi.18, p. 668

- -

Comment by Jeremy Wilson

Yes indeed, that occurred to me last night, as did another instance in SP when Lawrence reports a message from another area asking them to ‘Send us an Urens’ – or words to that effect. No time to search for it now. Given the wild variations of spelling of Arabic words in Seven Pillars, ‘Urens’ could probably also have been ‘Orens’ or ‘Aurens’.

Where exactly (in what buildings) was the Versailles Conference held?

- -

Comment by a French subscriber:
The letter to his family of Jan. 30, 1919, mentioning the Hotel Continental was published in Home Letters and again in Malcolm Brown’s Selected Letters edition (pp. 162-3). The hotel, now called the Intercontinental, is located 3 rue de Castiglione, near the Place Vendôme.

J.N. Lockman seems to have done some personal investigations into the matter. He discusses the vexed question of Paris hotels in Meinertzhagen’s Diary Ruse (1995), pp. 45-48: the British Delegation was housed at the Hotel Majestic – now an international conference center – on the Avenue Kléber in the 16th arrondissement, a half-hour’s walk from the Continental. Lockman notes that the Hejaz Delegation stayed at the Continental before moving to a “rented mansion at 72 avenue du Bois de Boulogne (today avenue Foch).” Lawrence had closer formal ties to the Hejaz Delegation than to the British Delegation, which presumably explains why he was not put up at the Majestic, at least during his first Paris stay (Jan.-May 1919).

- -

Posted by Yagitani, Ryoko, Japan

The Paris Peace Conference (18 January – 6 May 1919) was held mainly in the two buildings:

1) Quai d’Orsay (the French Foreign Office; see NPG Catalogue No.181) where the general assembly and “Council of Ten” meetings took place.

2) Hotel de Crillon (10 Place de la Concorde, next to the American Embassy) where the American Delegation stayed and “Council of Five/Four/Three” meetings took place.

On 7 May 1919 the stage moved to Versailles, Trianon Palais Hotel, then the Chateau de Versailles.

I am currently reading Roger Stephane’s Le Portrait de l’Aventurier, which is mainly a comparison between Lawrence, Malraux and Ernst von Salomon, as “adventurers” and as writers. Although it is not meant to be a biography, some of the analysis proposed by Stephane is among the most interesting I’ve read so far. I don’t have Phil O’Brien’s bibliography, so I wonder if there is an English translation of the book, because it would really be a shame if non-French speaking people interested in Lawrence could not have access to this book.

There is also an introduction by Jean-Paul Sartre, which gives an interesting vision of Lawrence as the “bourgeois” adventurer of modern times, risking his life abroad where his predecessors, in the 19th century, would go abroad to enjoy sexual freedom and spend their money.

Interestingly enough, Sartre admits that a socialist society where other Lawrences would be simply impossible (because of the “bourgeois” values of individualism and colonialism he represents to Sartre, and which go against all the communist credo), such a society would be “sterilized”.

I won’t sum up the book here of course, but I’d like to have your opinions on the book if you have read it.

- – -

Comment by Jeremy Wilson

There is no English translation of Stephane’s book

I don’t think it would be worth attempting to translate it unless one had a British publisher lined up – and I think that might be pretty difficult. Maybe an American academic publisher might look at it – but I am not an expert on US academic publishers.

The nature of popular interest in Lawrence is very different in France to what it is in England. In France, the interest is far more ‘intellectual’, and writers like Malraux, Stephane, et al have a commercially viable audience. I am aware of this because I have lectured on Lawrence in France and taken part in several documentary programmes, interviews, and discussion programmes about him on French TV and radio.

In England, the interest (as perceived by the press and commercial publishers) seems to me to be mainly gutter-press [this posting dates from 1998]. There is therefore at present not much of a commercial market in the UK for books that do not deal extensively with Lawrence’s sexuality, the Deraa experience, etc. When I am interviewed by the British media, the first question is usually ‘Was Lawrence gay?’ — which is a question I don’t think I have ever been asked by a French journalist, even on a ‘popular’ programme like the lunchtime magazine ‘13-14′.

That is not to say that questions about Lawrence’s sexuality are unimportant, or never discussed in France, but that French journalists and the French public evidently think there are some other things about Lawrence that are worthy of interest.

- – -

Comment by Ryoko Yagitani (Japan)

That is news to me! Le Portrait de l’Aventurier (1950) by Roger Stephane has been translated twice into Japanese, in 1972 and 1978. As a pre-Aldington book, it contains some out-of-date descriptions, however, I think that it is one of the most interesting books about TE.

- -

Please note: It has always been a condition of access to the T.E. Lawrence Studies list that if someone wishes to quote from a posting, they first obtain the author’s permission. This is not just a matter of copyright law. It is also to encourage lively discussion. If people who post feel they are writing for publication beyond the list, many will remain silent.

Reply by Jeremy Wilson:

In principle, no two copies of the 1926 Seven Pillars were bound the same way – and I have never seen two that looked identical. Lawrence argued that this would enable people to have the copies re-bound in any way they wished. As far as I remember, one American subscriber specified that he wanted the book delivered unbound. In at least one further case, I know that the original binding was taken off by a dealer and replaced with something better.

The surviving binders’ invoices show that the cost of the bindings varied widely, so some subscribers got more for their money than others. Lawrence did not specify the bindings, but seems to have given the binders a budget and left them to please themselves. Some of the bindings are very conventional, and others quite adventurous (ghastly, in one or two cases I have seen).

I have seen no evidence that any copy was actually issued in any kind of bag or slip-case. As far as I recall there is nothing about such things on the invoices that I have seen. The additional cost of some of the slip-cases that now accompany the books would have been considerable. I think all those things were added along the way. It is worth remembering that in the late 1920s the book was fetching £400-600 at auction – at that time enough money to buy a family house!

Answer (updated to 2008):

On the basis of the Retail Price index, £31-10-0 (30 guineas) in 1926 would have been worth £1,360.00 in 2008.

Source: http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/

December 1995
When Lisa changed jobs, Philip M. O’Brien, Lawrence’s bibliographer, took over responsibility for the list, which moved to Whittier College, Whittier, California, USA.

July 1997
Following disruption caused by malicious “trolls” on the unmoderated list, I set up a separate moderated ‘T.E. Lawrence Studies’ list, hosted in England on a server paid for by Castle Hill Press. This had a double benefit. Discussion was protected from abusive intruders, and the existence of the protected list made the Whittier list a less attractive target.

From the outset, the T.E.Lawrence Studies list guidelines defined its content areas and advised subscribers about conduct. The overwhelming majority of users have respected the guidelines.

July 1999
Following technical problems during the previous month, I accepted an offer from Jamie Brown of the English Department at George Washington University to co-own the list so that it could be hosted on the GWU server in Washington, DC, USA.

March 2005
I felt increasingly that Listserv hosting at GWU was not making the best use of the list archive. Moreover, about a thousand postings from the period before the move to GWU were unavailable. The subsequent archive was available from the GWU server, but not particularly easy to use.

My attention focused on these problems when St. John Armitage, an expert on Britain’s involvement in the Middle East and one of our principal contributors, died in the autumn of 2004. Many of his postings have lasting interest and I wished to make them more readily available. I therefore decided that, over a period of time, I would re-post the entire archive on an online board where it is easily accessible and can be searched or browsed.

The board was in T.E.Lawrence Studies webspace, paid for by Castle Hill Press and hosted on a 1&1 Internet server in Karlsruhe, Germany. The archive transfer began on 16 March 2005, and continued until all the pre-GWU postings were available online.

2007

The active list was transferred from the GWU host to the board, but it was soon clear that most of the list subscribers preferred to receive postings by email, so I created a simple e-mail version.

January 2010

Although the online archive board received a large number of visitors it was expensive to maintain. Since it contained a full chronological set of postings, some of the content no longer had any interest. Conversely, most of the more recent postings were not available. I therefore decided to take down the board and set up this WordPress site where in time I plan to publish a wide selection of posts from the list archive.