A postally unused postcard bearing an image of Lieutenant-Colonel T. E. Lawrence, C.B., D.S.O.
The card was printed on behalf of the Imperial War Museum by Raithby, Lawrence & Company Ltd. of Leicester and London.
Lawrence of Arabia
Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO (16th. August 1888 – 19th. May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer.
Professor Edgeworth, who like Lawrence was a fellow of All Souls’ College Oxford, avoided conversational English. He persistently used words and phrases that one expects to meet only in books. One evening, Lawrence returned from a visit to London, and Edgeworth met him at the gate:
“Was it very caliginous in the Metropolis?”
Lawrence replied gravely:
“Somewhat caliginous, but not altogether inspissated”.
Lawrence was renowned for his liaison role during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, and the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.
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 wartime activities.
Brough Superior Motorcycles
Brough Superior motorcycles were appreciated by a number of celebrities in the 1920's and 30's, but the most famous, and most closely associated with the marque, is Colonel T E Lawrence. Between 1922 and 1935 he owned seven Brough Superior motorcycles.
Lawrence often visited the Brough Haydn Road works, and was well known to the team there. He regularly wrote to George Brough describing his experiences riding Brough Superior motorcycles.
Lawrence called his Broughs ‘Boanerges’, ‘Boa’ for short, a Biblical reference which means ‘Sons of Thunder’. They were also individually known as George 1 through to George VII, as a tribute to their maker.
Lawrence adored his Broughs and rode them endlessly. In a letter to George written in 1926 he said:
‘Yesterday I completed 100,000 miles since 1922 on five successive Brough Superiors…I thank you for the road pleasure I have got out of them… Your present machines are as reliable and fast as Express Trains and the greatest fun in the world to drive – and I say this after twenty years' experience of cycles and cars.’
He went on to say that he often rode 500 miles a day, occasionally 700.
Lawrence was passionate about riding:
'It’s usually my satisfaction to purr along gently about 60 mph drinking in the air and the general view. I lose detail even at such moderate speeds, but gain comprehension. When I open out a little.'
Death
At the age of 46, two months after leaving military service, Lawrence was fatally injured in an accident on his Brough Superior SS100 motorcycle in Dorset, close to his cottage, Clouds Hill, near Wareham.
A dip in the road obstructed his view of two boys on their bicycles; he swerved to avoid them, lost control, and was thrown over the handlebars. He died six days later on the 19th. May 1935. The location is marked by a small memorial at the side of the road.
One of the doctors attending him was neurosurgeon Hugh Cairns, who consequently began a long study of the unnecessary loss of life by motorcycle dispatch riders through head injuries. His research led to the use of crash helmets by both military and civilian motorcyclists.
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