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Programme organised by Jeremy Wilson
Chaired by Jeremy Wilson and Malcolm Brown
Symposium administration by Suzanne Fox

This session was organised by T.E. Lawrence Studies in collaboration with the T. E. Lawrence Society, as a supplement to the Symposium.

The physical legacy we have inherited from Lawrence provides much of the basis for what we know about him. It includes manuscripts, letters, objects, books, portraits, photographs, and film. This joint presentation attempted a global survey of what survives, and where. It was be extensively illustrated with slides, showing material now held in British and overseas collections, creating a kind of visual musée imaginaire. During the day there were visits to see a specially arranged private exhibition at the Bodleian Library.

Jack Flavell was formerly an assistant librarian at the Bodleian Library where he organised the T.E. Lawrence centenary exhibition. His publications include the catalogue of the exhibition, and (as co-author) a bibliography of the Corvinus Press. He edits the Bodleian Quarterly Record, is a Trustee of the T.E. Lawrence Society, has spoken at previous society symposia and contributed to the Journal.

Dr. Philip M. O'Brien, College Librarian at Whittier College in California, compiled T. E. Lawrence, A Bibliography, an outstanding reference work that won the 1998 Besterman Medal of the Bibliographical Society. His knowledge of T.E. Lawrence printed materials is unrivalled. He has examined more than a third of Lawrence's subscribers' Seven Pillars. As a collaborator with and friend of the late Edwards H. Metcalf, he helped organise the first T. E. Lawrence symposia in California. He  has considerable knowledge of the huge T. E. Lawrence bibliographical collection that Edwards Metcalf gifted to the Huntington Library.    

Jeremy Wilson studied PPE at Balliol College, Oxford, and International Relations at the LSE, where he also held an SSRC Research Award. As author of  Lawrence of Arabia, The Authorised Biography (1989) and series editor of T. E. Lawrence Letters, he has exceptional experience researching Lawrence's life. His publications include the catalogue to the National Portrait Gallery's T. E. Lawrence centenary exhibition (1988). His edition of the complete 1922 'Oxford' Seven Pillars was first published in 1997. He was chairman of the society from 1990 to 1994 and has contributed to several previous symposia. 

This black-and-white television documentary includes interviews with people from many walks of life who knew Lawrence, providing an unusual insight into his life and times.

It was introduced by Malcolm Brown who, forty years ago, was the film's co-producer. Malcolm, formerly a scholar of St. John's College, Oxford, also helped Julia Cave produce the BBC's 1986 T. E. Lawrence documentary. He has close links with the Imperial War Museum and has written and edited several works about the First World War. His Lawrence-related publications include A Touch of Genius (with Julia Cave, 1988) and T.E. Lawrence (British Library 'Historic Lives' series, 2003). He also edited The Letters (1988), and Secret Despatches from Arabia (1991), and has contributed to several of the society's symposia and the Journal.. 

SATURDAY 25 SEPTEMBER

This paper gave an account of the close relationship between T.E. Lawrence and Siegfried Sassoon, which lasted from their first meeting in London just after WW1 until Lawrence's death in 1935. It discussed their mutual regard for each other's literary work; their attitudes towards the war, and the more personal aspects of their friendship. Paul Helfer also discussed Lawrence's relationship with Sir Philip Sassoon, when the latter was Under Secretary of State for Air, and touched on the separate relationship between A.W. Lawrence and Siegfried Sasson, which survived TEL's death. 

Paul Helfer is a New York attorney specialising in literary property and copyright law. He has lectured about T.E. Lawrence since 1970, and has previously given papers at T. E. Lawrence Society symposia in Oxford and the United States. With Jennifer Lee, he taught the course in bibliography and book collecting at Brown University from 1993 to 1995. He is a member of the Grolier Club, the Bibliographical Society of America and the Royal Asiatic Society (London). His T.E. Lawrence collection has been exhibited at the Beinecke Library at Yale and the John Hay Library at Brown University.

In the spring of 2003, Jonathan Tubb gave a paper at an Oxford University seminar on Lawrence's work at Carchemish. This new paper developed some of its themes in order to asses not only Lawrence's role in the excavations, but also the overall significance of the Carchemish project within the context of contemporary excavations in Syria. In particular, Jonathan Tubb highlighted the way in which Carchemish helped to characterize a "Neo-Hittite", as opposed to an "Aramaean" culture, for the North Syrian Iron Age.

Jonathan Tubb, BA, FSA, is curator for Syria/Palestine in the Ancient Near East Department of the British Museum. He trained in Levantine archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology in London. He began his field career in Syria and Iraq in the 1970s, and for eight years was assistant director at the site of Qadesh on the Orontes. In 1984 he excavated the Early Bronze Age site of Tiwal esh-Sharrqi on behalf of the British Museum, and in 1985 was invited by the Jordanian Department of Antiquities to undertake full-scale excavations at the large site of Tell es-Sa’idiyeh, a project which continues to this day. He has published many articles and books on Palestinian archaeology, including Canaanites (BMP 1998). He lectures internationally and is current Chairman of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

This paper began with an outline of the Palestine Campaign, which provided both the context and an increasingly important motive for Britain's support to the Arab Revolt. It then discussed the inter-relationship between Allenby's campaigns and the Arab advance, assessing the contribution each made to the other. 

Dr Matthew Hughes is Senior Lecturer in Military and International History and Director of the Centre for Conflict Studies at the University of Salford. His publications include Allenby and British Strategy in the Middle East, 1917-19 (London: Frank Cass 1999), and he is currently working on a volume of Allenby's correspondence for the Army Records Society. In 2000 Dr Hughes was Elie Kedourie Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Centre, Tel Aviv University, and Visiting Scholar at the American University in Cairo. The American University in Beirut has invited him to Lebanon as a visiting research fellow for the spring semester of 2004. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

John Mack's biography of Lawrence, A Prince of our Disorder, was published in 1976 and won a Pulitzer Prize. Written from the viewpoint of a Harvard Professor of Psychiatry, it is the outstanding personal interpretation of Lawrence's life.

Jeremy Wilson's Authorised Biography of Lawrence was placed by the New York Times Review of Books among the fourteen best titles published in the US in 1990. Its aim was to establish a reliable historical account of Lawrence's life.

Wilson's work and Mack's are widely seen as complementary. These are the two 'standard' T.E. Lawrence biographies, read by most people seriously interested in the subject.

Malcolm Brown's work on Lawrence has been hardly less impressive. He helped produce two major BBC Television documentaries and has written or co-authored two Lawrence biographies. He also edited the new edition of Lawrence's letters published in 1988.

He chaired this wide-ranging discussion which brought together three widely acknowledged experts on Lawrence's life. Together, they explored questions about Lawrence's life and the problems it presents for his biographers.  

The panel, consisting of a selection of the speakers, discussed questions from the floor about any aspect of Lawrence's life. 

In addition to being prominent figures in political affairs, both Lawrence and Malraux were steeped in literary and cultural traditions. This paper investigated the basis for André Malraux's fascination with Lawrence, in relation to the French adventurer figure.

Professor Mary Bryden, Professor of European Literary Studies at the University of Cardiff and President of the Samuel Beckett Society, is writing a book about T.E. Lawrence from the French perspective. In 2000 she gave a paper titled ‘Lawrence Of, or In, Arabia?’ at the ACLA Annual Conference, Yale University. Formerly a Senior Lecturer at Reading University, in 2000 Mary Bryden was a Visiting Fellow at Magdalen College Oxford. In 1994 she was Andrew W Mellon Foundation Fellow at Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. She has been a visiting lecturer at universities in France, Japan, Greece, and the Czech Republic.

Eric Kennington's friendship with T.E. Lawrence spanned the post-war period and was the closest of Lawrence's friendships with artists. In 1921 Kennington drew the Arab portraits that illustrated Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Afterwards, he became art-editor of both the 1926 and 1935 editions. This talk about his role as art-editor drew on material in the Kennington papers in the Bodleian Library as well as private and public  archives elsewhere. 

Dr. Jonathan Black studied history at Cambridge and the history of art at UCL. He is the leading authority on the life and work of Eric Kennington. In 2001 he organised an exhibition of Kennington's work at University College London. In 2002 he gave a paper to the society's symposium about the memorial effigy of Lawrence now in St Martin's Church, Wareham, and its replica exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery. He subsequently published The Sculpture of Eric Kennington (British Sculptors and Sculpture Series, 2002). In 2003 he contributed an article to The Medal about Kennington's Lawrence of Arabia memorial medal, designed for the Royal Central Asian Society.

For Lawrence, motor-cycles were not just a means of transport, but a transport of delight. Much as his father had relished the latest developments in pedal cycles, TE went on to own a succession of Brough Superiors, marketed as the last word in motor-cycle technology. This talk considered the delights and perils of motorcycling and traced Lawrence's love-affair with motor-cycling through his letters and observations. It was illustrated by photographs and illuminating quotes.

Richard Knowles, who spoke at the first T.E. Lawrence Society symposium in 1990, is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and for seventeen years edited the Journal of the Church Monuments Society. He writes: 'In my early career, before progressing into bookselling management, I was a Post Office Messenger on a BSA Bantam. I am a two-stroke fan and have owned a number of Scott Flying Squirrels - controversially (for the purposes of this talk) my personal favourite bike. I have ridden one of 1928 vintage over the closed IOM TT circuit. I have also owned Japanese two-strokes and a V twin Ducati.' Richard is currently writing a book about Lawrence and his Brough Superiors for the Fleece Press. His most recent monograph was another Fleece Press edition, Precious Caskets, The Friendship of T.E. Lawrence and William McCance (2003).

Only three full-length biographical documentaries about Lawrence have ever appeared on the BBC. James Hawes and George Pagliero produced this latest. A co-production with the American Public Broadcaster, PBS, the two-hour film attempted to tell Lawrence's story in its political context and to travel very exactly in his footsteps through Syria and Jordan. They filmed on location in Jordan, just as the West was preparing its latest 'war in the East'. They found themselves treading on extremely politically sensitive territory and dealing with very real security issues. The presentation told the story of modern film-maker's odyssey, in the shadow of Lean, against the backdrop of Gulf War Two, and with all the triumphs and disasters that can afflict a documentary production.

James Hawes wrote, produced and directed Lawrence of Arabia, The Battle for the Arab World. George Pagliero was assistant producer, and also played the 'Arabian' Lawrence.

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Previous symposium, Oxford, 2002