Lawrence of Oxford

And so, in the spring of 1911, TEL left Oxford, never to return for any considerable length of time. The family home remained at Polstead Road until 1921, and there was one further close link with the city to come in the future. After the Arabian days, the first writing of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and the subsequent loss of the manuscript, in November 1919 TEL was elected a Research Fellow of All Souls' College.

The award was suggested by All Souls' Fellow Geoffrey Dawson, who was then editor of The Times newspaper, and the intention behind it was to enable TEL to work on the rewriting of Seven Pillars of Wisdom by providing him with accommodation and a basic income from the annual stipend of £200. The income was essential, but the atmosphere of Oxford college life was evidently unsuited to the work which lay ahead, and in the event much of the rewriting was done in London.

All Souls' College has amassed a considerable collection of artefacts connected with TEL, which are however not on general display. The items include this magnificent head-rope bound with gold wire, a red head-cloth, and his gold Meccan dagger, made specially for him in the summer of 1917, according to TEL's description, 'in the third little turning to the left off the main bazaar, by an old Nejdi goldsmith whose name I fancy was Gasein'. In 1923, by then serving in the Tank Corps, and short of money as the costs involved in producing the subscribers' edition of Seven Pillars spiralled, TEL offered the dagger to the firm of Spinks without identifying its ownership. Lionel Curtis got to hear of this, bought the dagger directly from TEL at the Spinks' valuation of £125, and in due course presented it to All Souls' College.