Previous Lot Next Lot

Auction: 16043 - Autographs, Historical Documents, Ephemera and Postal History
Lot: 93

Documents
T. E. Lawrence
1923 (27 March) folio A.L.S. to his friend "Rabbit" (Robert A. M. Guy), putting off a meeting the latter had suggested and announcing the arrival of his new luxury motorcycle, "Won’t do: this is a hush-hush place, in a desert, with no houses or pubs near. You can’t come here. – Brough arrived here yesterday. Isn’t very fit yet, having only just been decarbonised. I garage him near the camp. I’m afraid you can’t have him for Easter though. – I may have next Friday – or rather Friday week, the Friday after Easter, free. (48 hours ex-duty for inoculation). If fine I’ll pop up to Farnborough + see you in dinner hour, arriving about 12.30. That do? If not I’ll run up some Wednesday afternoon + call on the C.O. + wave a hand to you as I pass. Love and mashed / R.".


In August 1922 Lawrence had enlisted in the RAF under the name of "Ross" (hence the initial). He soon took some of the younger recruits under his wing, lending them books and helping them financially. One of these, the short and fair Rob Guy, "beautiful like a Greek God" (in Lawrence’s words) but stricken with a "vile" Birmingham accent, was popularly known as "Rabbit" in the force. Judging from Lawrence’s correspondence after he left Farnborough and the RAF in 1922, the two must have been very close at some point: indeed, Lawrence said that Guy "embodie[d] the best of the Air Force ranks as I picture them". Yet by the end of 1923, Lawrence had largely withdrawn himself from Guy, writing that "we’re very unmatched, + it took ... the barrack-room communion to weld us comfortably together"; even in this letter penned in March he seems to be edging away cautiously. Lawrence was at the time going through training in the Tank Corps, where, in his continuing quest for anonymity, he was known as "T. E. Shaw". The Brough here mentioned is not in fact the one on which he was famously killed, now on display at the Imperial War Museum. Altogether, Lawrence owned no fewer than eight Brough Superior motorcycles, of which this one (nicknamed "George I" and bought for a princely £150) was the second. Photo

Thomas Edward Lawrence CB DSO FAS (1888 – 1935) was a British archaeologist, military officer, and diplomat. He was renowned for his liaison role during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and the Arab Revolt against the ruling Ottoman Empire. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia—a title used for the 1962 film based on his First World War activities.

Subject to 20% VAT on Buyer’s Premium. For more information please view Terms and Conditions for Buyers.

Sold for
£2,000