A rare and intriguing letter signed by TE Lawrence – part of a unique album of famous wartime signatures – comes up for auction at the Canterbury Auction Galleries on April 1&2.
Dated Nov 1919, it refers, slightly tetchily, to “an American cinematograph artist who found out that I was a novelty in a khaki war and is making a lot of money out of it. PS I wish I was making something too!”
What was he referring to?
At the date of the letter, November 21, 1919, he would have been 31 and recently demobbed as a lieutenant colonel after a stellar war fighting alongside Arab guerrilla forces in the Middle East.
He had received a polite letter from a Boy Scout living in Kent, asking for his autograph. The boy was collecting signatures from, according to his own handwritten inscription in the album, “Men who did things in the Great War, 1914-18”.
The rare album contains scores of signatures and notes from luminaries of the time, including the Prime Minister, Rudyard Kipling and many recipients of the Victoria Cross. Lawrence was indulgent enough to reply to the enthusiastic boy. Our presumption is that he was referring to a short film made of him by an American war correspondent, Lowell Thomas, who, along with cameraman Harry Chase, had encountered Lawrence in Palestine, drawn by rumours of his exploits.
In August 1919, three months before the letter was written, Lowell Thomas had launched a series of illustrated lectures in London. Alongside Arabic music and dancing were photos and film of Lawrence, attired in his familiar headdress. The film especially became hugely popular, and we guess this is what Lawrence refers to in the letter.
In 1927 Lowell Thomas returned for a second photo shoot and edited his work into a longer film ‘With Lawrence of Arabia’. It was seen by an estimated 3 million people between 1920 and 1924 and made Lawrence a star – arguably giving birth to the legend we know today and sowing the seed for Peter O’Toole’s film of the same name in 1962.
Whether Lawrence finally received any payback from the film remains a mystery. The letter is also unusual in that he signed his real name. He hated the limelight and later used pseudonyms to hide his true identity. He enlisted in the RAF under the name “John Hume Ross” and, later, “Thomas Edward Shaw” – a name he used until his death, accompanied by a “TES” signature. We can only imagine the thrill of that keen little boy when this precious note dropped through the letterbox. He wasn’t to know at that time that Lawrence had got one big thing wrong. “…don’t believe I’ll be a famous man,” he wrote.
The auction, at the Canterbury Auction Galleries, takes place on the weekend of April 1&2. The album, estimate £4-6,000, also includes signatures from Rudyard Kipling, Douglas Haig, David Lloyd George, Arthur J. Balfour, H. H. Asquith, Robert Baden Powell and numerous V.C. recipients including – G. Lyall, G. Tearkes, G. Sanders, W.D. Bissett, J.P. Johnson, E.P. Marriott M. G. Christie and John Galsworthy.