Thomas Edward (Lawrence) Shaw CB DSO (1888 - 1935)

Ancestors

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 In Literature 1.2 Famous Cousins 2 Sources

Biography

Thomas Edward Lawrence was born on the 16th of August 1888 at Tremadog, Caernarfonshire, North Wales. His mother's maiden surname was recorded on the birth registration as Maden ( when actually her last name at birth was Junner and she was known by the name Lawrence from a young age ).^[1]
He was baptised on the 26th of March 1904 at St Aldate, Oxford, England, as a son of Thomas Robert Lawrence Gentleman, and Sarah Lawrence, The baptism record records his birth date as the 16th of August 1888.^[2]

He was known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, and was a British Army officer 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, which title was used for the 1962 film based on his World War I activities.

His parents were Sir Thomas Robert Tighe Chapman and Sarah ( Junner ) Lawrence who was a governess in his father's home. Sir Thomas Chapman had left his wife, Edith, and assumed Sarah's surname of Lawrence ( he and Sarah Lawrence remained unmarried throughout their life together, although it was recorded in the 1911 census that they were married, and had been for 27 years ).
T.E. Lawrence was the second of the five children born to Sarah and Thomas. Because of the extensive traveling done by his parents, neither he nor his brothers were born in the same country; Robert, was born in Ireland, William in Scotland, Frank in Jersey, and Arnold in England.

Lawrence claimed that in about 1905, he ran away from home and served for a few weeks as a boy soldier with the Royal Garrison Artillery at St Mawes Castle in Cornwall, from which he was bought out. No evidence of this can be found in army records.

In 1907–10, While living in Oxford young Lawrence studied History at Jesus College and graduated with First Class Honours. He became a practicing archaeologist in the Middle East, working at various excavations with David George Hogarth and Leonard Woolley.

In 1908, he joined the Oxford University Officers' Training Corps and underwent a two-year training course. He had spent years in the desert developing an intimate knowledge and love of the Bedouin tribes that roamed the region.

T.E.Lawrence.

In January 1914, Lawrence was co-opted by the British Army to undertake a military survey of the Negev Desert while doing archaeological research. At the outbreak of war Lawrence was rejected as physically unfit for military service but his unique knowledge of the area made him a perfect candidate for the Intelligence Service at Cairo.

In June 1916 Hussein ibn-Ali, the sharif of Mecca, had raised the flag of revolt against the four-century-old Ottoman domination of the Arabian Peninsula. As governor of the Hejaz, the desert province bordering the Red Sea, he controlled Islam's holiest place, Mecca, which gave him spiritual leadership of the Arab peoples. Yet Hussein's rebellion soon stalled in front of Medina, where Turkish troops were assured of supplies via the railway to the north.

Before proclaiming the rebellion, Hussein had sought support from the British. He later claimed that they had promised guns, ammunition, and technical assistance in cutting the rail link. From the outset, the British intended to control the revolt and deliberately withheld supplies to make Hussein "more modest and accommodating." But when it began to appear that Hussein might be driven back to Mecca and forced to capitulate, the British realised that it was time for a firsthand report. The man they sent from Cairo was a 28 year-old intelligence officer who spoke Arabic and already had some years of experience in the Middle East: Thomas Edward Lawrence.

Lawrence was sent to bring order and direction to the Arab cause. The experience transformed the introverted and studious Lawrence into one of the most colourful military figures of the war. For two years Lawrence and his band of Arab irregulars attacked Turkish strongholds, severed communications, destroyed railways and supported the British regular army in the drive north to Damascus.

Twice during 1917 Lawrence made dangerous secret forays behind enemy lines to rouse Arabs in Syria. At the village of Deraa, in November, he was briefly detained by the Turks, who probably did not realise his identity. According to the account in his postwar memoirs Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence was horribly tortured by his captors. Lowell Thomas verified this in his letters to me.^{[citation needed]}

The experience at Deraa left deep psychological scars which are evident throughout his later writings.

"Seven Pillars of Wisdom" is the autobiographical account of the experiences of T. E. Lawrence, while serving as a liaison officer with rebel forces during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks of 1916 to 1918.

T.E. Lawrence in uniform

In 1921 Lawrence wrote an introduction to an edition of Doughty. The opening is pure Lawrence.

It is not comfortable to have to write about Arabia Deserta. I have studied it for ten years, and have grown to consider it a book not like other books, but something particular, a bible of its kind. To turn round now and recokon its merits and demerits seems absurd.^[3]

Lawrence's public image resulted in part from the publication of the revolt by an American journalist, Lowell Thomas, as well as from Lawrence's autobiographical account, "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" (1922).

He is one of the very few Englishmen who have ever refused both the Victoria Cross and a knighthood.

At some point he changed his name to Thomas Edward Shaw. He signed letters as T.E. Shaw.

In 1935, T.E Shaw was fatally injured in a motorcycle crash in Dorset, near his home at Clouds Hill, and died at the Military Hospital, Bovington Camp, Wool, Dorset, on the 19th of May 1935, aged 46.^[4]
He was buried as Thomas Edward Shaw on the 21st of May 1935 at Moreton, Dorset, England. The register has the margin note: Better known as Colonel Lawrence of Arabia^[5]

Lawrence on his Brough Superior

In Literature

In 1990 Jeremy Wilson wrote Lawrence of Arabia The Authorised Biography of T.E. Lawrence. The correspondence between Lawrence and the Mr.and Mrs. George Bernard Shaw is just one of many highlights. Lawrence carried two books that he used for reference while in Arabia, Clausewitz, On War even though there is nothing on the kind of guerrilla warfare that Lawrence practiced;^[6] and Doughty Travels in Arabia Deserta. ^[7]

Famous Cousins

Orde Wingate DSO often called "Lawrence of Judea," and T. E. Lawrence CB DSO are third cousins twice removed, both descendants of Benjamin Chapman.

Sources

1. ↑ GRO birth index: LAWRENCE, THOMAS EDWARD  :mother's maiden surname: MADEN  : GRO Reference: 1888 Sept Quarter in FESTINIOG Volume 11B Page 385
2. ↑ Oxfordshire Family History Society; Oxford, Oxfordshire, England; Anglican Parish Registers; Reference Number: BOD195_b_5 : Source Information Ancestry.com. Oxfordshire, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1915
3. ↑ Charles M. Doughty. Travels in Arabia Deserta In Two Volumes. Dover Publications,INc. New York. 1979.
4. ↑ England & Wales General Register Office, GRO Online Index - Death (https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content) : accessed 14 December 2020, database entry for SHAW, THOMAS EDWARD ; GRO Reference: 1935 J Quarter in WAREHAM Volume 05A Page 312
5. ↑ Moreton parish register Burials 1935 : Dorchester, England; Reference: PE/MTN Title Dorset, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-2010 Author Ancestry.com
6. ↑ Carl Von Causewitz. On War. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey. 1989.
7. ↑ Jeremy Wilson. Lawrence of Arabia The Authorized Biography of T.E. Lawrence. Atheneum. New York. 1990.

• Seven Pillars of Wisdom
• PBS (Play) Lawrence of Arabia.
• With Lawrence in Arabia by Thomas, Lowell; original photographs taken by H. A. Chase, F.R.G.S., and by the author. Published 1924 by The Century co. in New York, London . Library of Congress D568.4.L45 T53 Pagination: xviii, 408 p. [1]
• Family Search "England and Wales, Birth Registration Index, 1837-1920", index, FamilySearch : Thomas Lawrence, 1888.
• Mysteries

See also:

• Benson-Gyles, Dick. The Boy in the Mask; The Hidden World of Lawrence of Arabia. Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2016.
• Wikidata: Item Q170596, en:Wikipedia
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence