WILLIAM ROBERTS R.A (5 June 1895 - 20 January 1980)William Roberts was an English painter and war artist. He was a founder member of the influential Vorticist Group, a powerful recorder of the front-line battles of the First World War, and a unique observer of the foibles and activities of Britain at leisure over almost fifty years. In 1922–6 he was commissioned to produce illustrations and decorations for Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom including this pencil drawing of S.F. Newcombe.
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| SFN by William Roberts R.A. |
"In 1920 Colin Gill, who had been a fellow-student at the Slade, sent me a note saying 'Colonel Lawrence is seeking artists to make portrait drawings for a book he is producing; get in touch with him.' I wrote to Lawrence and as a result I contributed several portrait drawings to 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom,' besides a painting of Lawrence in his Royal Air Force uniform. He sat for this portrait (the Lawrence portrait) in a room I was using at Coleherne Terrace, Earl's Court. Sometimes if I was late for our meeting I found him sitting on the dark stairs that led to my temporary studio. He lent me during several Summers his small woodman's cottage at Clouds Hill in Dorset."
From William Roberts, Five Posthumous Essays and Other Writings (Valencia, 1990).
JOHN MANSFIELD CREALOCK, R.H.A (12 March 1871- 12 January 1959)
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| SFN by John Crealock R.H.A |
This fabulous oil painting by the artist John Mansfield Crealock was painted in 1938 when Newcombe was sixty-years-old and working on proposals for what may be called a bi-nation state in Palestine, with limited and controlled immigration and absorption of Jews according to the physical and economic capacity of the country.
Newcombe argued and lobbied this position to whoever in authority would listen. He set up committees to counter-balance the Zionist message, gaining access to high level ministers of state including the Prime Minister. He submitted his evidence to the Palestine Royal Commission, invited guests sympathetic to the cause to the Royal Central Asian Society Dinner Club, of which he was Honorary Secretary, and wrote articles for magazines and periodicals such as The Empire Review under the auspices of the Palestine Information Centre, where he also held the post of Honorary Secretary.
In this portrait Crealock has captured Newcombe's grey hair although there is still a hint of red to his familiar moustache, as well as a touch of humour shown in his eyes.
January 1917. Newcombe, having just landed at Umlej, raced to catch Lawrence for the advance on Wejh. Lawrence’s diary records “At 1:15 Newcombe arrived with Mohammed Ali El Beidawi on a horse and joined the party.”
Newcombe appears in this photograph reproduced in Oriental Assembly emerging from, or disappearing into, a scrub of short palms alongside a well trodden sandy path at Semna. A copy of the photo is held by the Imperial War Museum - IWM (Q 58856).
"Our road to-day was easy
for them, since it was over firm sand slopes, long, slowly-rising waves of
dunes, bare-backed, but for scrub in the folds, or barren palm-trees solitary
in the moist depressions. Afterwards in a broad flat, two horsemen came cantering
across from the left to greet Feisal. I knew the first one, dirty old
blear-eyed Mohammed Ali el Beidawi, Emir of the Juheina: but the second looked
strange. When he came nearer I saw he was in khaki uniform, with a cloak to
cover it and a silk head-cloth and head-rope, much awry. He looked up, and
there was Newcombe's red and peeling
face, with straining eyes and vehement mouth, a strong, humorous grin between
the jaws. He had arrived at Um Lejj
this morning, and hearing we were only just off, had seized Sheikh Yusuf's
fastest horse and galloped after us." Seven Pillars of Wisdom
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| SFN at SEMNA, 1917 by T.E. Lawrence |
"To-day had a grey weather, so
strange after the many thronging suns, that Newcombe and I walked stooping to look where our shadows had gone,
as we talked of what I hoped, and of what he wanted. They were the same thing,
so we had brain-leisure to note Semna and
its fine groves of cared-for palms between little hedges of dead thorn; with
here and there huts of reed and palm-rib, to shelter the owners and their
families at times of fertilisation and harvest. In the lowest gardens and in
the valley bed were the shallow wood-lined wells, whose water was, they said,
fairly sweet and never-failing: but so little fluent that to water our host of
camels took the night."
Lawrence photographed Newcombe disappearing into a palm-grove, perhaps for a
private moment, at an oasis named Samnah (Semna by TEL). This was where Feisal
had camped after leaving Wadi Yanbo on the first stage of the march north to
Wejh. Newcombe had raced across a broad sand flat which gradually rose to a
rough lava field, its roughness smoothed over by an infill of soft sand and
therefore made easier to cross, before descending as a sand-cliff to the
verdant sanctuary whose palms were the outward indication of numerous wells and
an abundance of water. Even so, the throng of men and animals rode a little higher up the further
valley slopes in case of floods before Feisal tapped his camel lightly on its
neck. At this signal she collapsed her legs under her and sank to the ground,
pushing aside the shingle with her knees to make it more comfortable. Then the
hearth carpet was spread and coffee prepared while the men jested, told stories
or planned the next move. Then the scouts were sent out to seek rain-pools on the road
ahead and to determine tomorrow’s route-march. Beyond Arabia
ELLIOTT & FRY PHOTOGRAPHERS
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| Newcombe in retirement, by Elliott and Fry |
Elliott and Fry Photographers had been taking photos of sitters since 1863. By the mid 1930's, when this portrait was taken, it operated out of three studios and employed a number of photographers. It is probable that this image of Newcombe was taken by Walter Benington as both photographer and sitter were living in Oxford at the same time. This is Newcombe at the time of Lawrence's death.
UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHER, January 1917
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Newcombe descending from HMS Hardinge
with Commander Linberry looking on |
This photo shows Newcombe descending from HMS Hardinge at the small coastal town of Umlej with Commander (Acting) T.J. Linberry looking on. It marks the moment that Newcombe first arrived in the Hejaz in January 1917.
Commander Thomas John Linberry was born in India in November 1882 and served during the Great War as acting Commander of HMS Hardinge as part of the Red Sea Patrol. Linberry is mentioned a number of times in Lawrence's Seven Pillars. He is credited with being a great supplier of Naval hospitality. Lawrence recounts the following report of one King's view of heaven:
"In the early days of the revolt it had been the Hardinge which had been given leisure to play providence to us. Once, at Yenbo, Feisal had ridden to the port from the hills on a streaming day of winter, cold, wet, miserable and tired. Linberry had sent a launch ashore, and invited him to the ship where he had found a warm cabin, a peaceful meal, and a bath made ready for him. Afterwards he lay far back in an armchair, smoking one of his constant cigarettes, and remarked dreamily to me that he now knew what the furnishing of heaven would be."
Linberry was also commended for his service in transporting the Holy Carpet (the Kiswah) from Cairo to Mecca. The yearly transport of the Carpet, the highly decorative covering of the Kaaba in Mecca, together with an escort of four hundred troops and a sacred white camel, required the Hardinge to be specially refitted to carry the important cargo. At the completion of the work, and with a full cargo of over six hundred and fifty troops, fifty seven horses, twenty six mules and three camels, the journey from Suez took two days, and included a customary twenty one gun salute on arrival. As part of her precious cargo, the Hardinge carried gold and silver for Sherif Hussein's Arabian Government amounting to £250,900, the equivalent of £10,000,000 today.
