The Letters of the Young Lawrence of Arabia

The young TE Lawrence wrote letters and sent postcards home regularly while on his cycle trips in 1906-08. He was quite dutiful about it, particularly in 1906, when he wrote a couple of times a week, despite writing to his father on one occasion that letter-writing was a bore. Often he wrote on Sundays (his family was religious) and usually his letters were addressed to his mother, though they were really intended to be read by his father and the rest of the family.

In his letters he writes of his travels, of meals and how much they cost, of things to buy - cider jugs, decorative boxes and furniture - and of the places he visits, often with his friend ‘Scroggs’ (CFC Beeson). These include towns, but also particularly medieval castles and abbeys, about which he comments on architecture and design as well as the adventures he has exploring them -

“It was very difficult to make notes… I was clinging with teeth and eyelids on a ledge about four inches wide, half way up the tower.”

He is decisive and quick to criticise castles he doesn’t like, but equally he is full of superlatives, saying often how the latest castle he has visited is perhaps the finest he has seen. He makes some observations of everyday French life - of winnowing machines and “women spinning in their cottage doorways” - even of the effects of tourism - “I have bought 16 postcards of Breton heads, bodies and legs in weird costume. I hope they do not invent them for the sake of the photographer”. He writes of sending post-cards, some with no message (which cost less to send) and the logistics of travel, even of the logistics of getting letters into the post. And he writes of his concerns at home, of exam results and the local Boys Brigade in which he and his brothers were involved.

During his cycle trips in Brittany, Lawrence based himself in Dinard, a developing seaside holiday town, where his family had lived 15 years before (often he stayed with their former neighbours, a family called Chaignon) and he passes on news about them and other friends in the town. He is happy to relate a little gossip and he is not beyond being a little rude, certainly in the pursuit of humour:

“They are most amusing; sitting down to the table, squaring their shoulders, and attacking “Course 8” with the same ferocity and sternness as they did the first”.

His tone, with the self-assurance of the age, can feel earnest. A letter to his brother about an archaeological dig feels more like a lecture than brotherly advice, but he can be playful too, sending messages to his younger brother - “Hug and tickle Arnie for me.” - and telling him tall stories about catching squirrels and killing wolves.

For all this variety, quite a few of the letters consist of little other than his impressions of a particular castle or abbey. He was collecting information and making sketches and plans and he used his letters home as a way of recording his memories. He would also collect and often send postcards, again as records; interestingly, the photographs he took in 1907 and 1908 were often of castles of which he could find no good postcards. At first, this was out of general interest, but later it took on a sharper focus, as research for his undergraduate thesis (See more about his thesis).

The dry detail led to a recurring complaint from his mother, who felt that he wrote too much about the castles and not enough about himself. He admitted it, starting one letter to her with: “Here goes another letter full of nothing.”, and then persisted in doing it. At the same time he responded to his father (who presumably had conveyed the complaint) by writing: “…all my letters are equally bare of personal information. The buildings I try to describe will last longer than we will, so it is only fitting that they should have the greater space.”

The letters sent home from his cycle journeys are the best source material covering the early life of TE Lawrence and they contain a great deal of detail about his life and show what sort of a young man he was. One frustrating thing for researchers is that the last few days of any trip are usually left unrecorded as he would not send a letter just before returning home.

Finally, he mentions his cycling quite regularly, the practical side, the punctures he has repaired and other mechanical issues he had. He was clearly an able mechanic, something which would resurface later in his life when he was in the Royal Air Force and helped to develop the motorboats needed to supply seaplanes. He also comments on his increasing physical ability, his capacity to cycle at speed and to cover long distances. It is also possible to see his developing sense of adventure as he asks permission to strike out further afield and take on longer trips. The endurance he was discovering was a key element of his character, one which would be vital in his military pursuits later in life.

In James Henderson’s Journals in the Trail of TE Lawrence’s cycle journeys, references to cycling and his endurance are highlighted in blue. See more about Young Lawrence the Cyclist.