Home > World War I > T. E. Lawrence Biography

August 15, 1888
Tremadoc, North Wales
May 13, 1935
Bovington Camp, Dorset, England

Scholar, writer, soldier, and adventurer

Scholar, writer, soldier, and adventurer, Thomas Edward Lawrence became an unwilling figure of exotic romance and daring during World War I. A student and admirer of Arab culture, Lawrence devoted his young adulthood to trying to help the Arab people achieve independence. The failure to achieve this goal, however, left him broken and disappointed, and he spent the rest of his life trying to escape the fame and public adoration that he had never wanted. Though many people honored him as a glamorous hero, others thought he was a conceited fraud who did not deserve the place he was given in history, as Lawrence of Arabia.

A Young Knight Prepares for His Quest

All of his life T. E. Lawrence was an eccentric, a misfit who never did things in...