Kennington's Lawrence effigy at Wareham

Lawrence effigy in repose

 

"The shock of T.E.'s death. Yes, when we were getting over it I had a letter from Buxton asking me to attend a committee which would plan a National Memorial."

The artist and sculptor Eric Kennington was among a select group of people brought together to discuss a fitting memorial following the death of T.E. Lawrence in 1935. "As far as I can remember," Kennington recalled many years later, "the other members were Buxton 'in the chair', Lady Astor, who soon elbowed him out of it and was in it herself, Newcombe, Storrs, Bernard Shaw, Lionel Curtis, Sir Herbert Baker."

Robin Buxton was Lawrence's banker and former colleague in the desert war. Lionel Curtis was an old friend and advocate of Imperial Federalism, which after its rejection in 1937 gave way to the idea of a Commonwealth of Nations. Sir Herbert Baker was an influential architect who with Edwin Lutyens had created New Delhi which became the capital of the British Raj in India. Baker had given Lawrence sanctuary in an upstairs attic room above his studios in Barton Street, Westminster, allowing Lawrence to work undisturbed on his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

The committee was slow to come up with suitable ideas. "Then Baker said he had asked T.E. once what his idea was for a monument to himself," Kennington recalled, "and his reply - "The largest mountain in Arabia carved into a likeness of himself!" This amused Sir Ronald Storrs who interjected, "What a fine target for the Arabs - they'd get his nose first shot." Storrs, formerly assistant to the High Commissioner in Egypt followed by spells as Governor of Jerusalem and Cyprus, was an old friend of Lawrence and was instrumental in inviting him to assess the situation in the Hejaz at the start of the Arab Revolt. He knew that no grand ideas were ever formed by committees, but a lot of foolish ideas died there. Then Baker said, "What about an effigy? We have a distinguished sculptor here." Kennington had been lying low throughout the proceedings but quickly produced some sketches which were generally accepted. Then the matter went very quiet for several months. Kennington turned to the one man he could trust to give him a straight answer. He wrote to Stewart Newcombe who replied, "Nothing doing - it's all off. They aren't going on with a National Memorial." This was a blow especially as leaflets had gone out requesting donations and had been signed by the committee members which now included Churchill, Allenby and Augustus John. The idea was quietly dropped.

Hand on Arabian khanjar dagger

Two years passed when a chance encounter at Oxford railway station between Kennington and Curtis reinvigorated the idea of an effigy. Curtis remembered their previous association and said it was a pity that the scheme for an effigy had fallen through, adding, "I wonder what it would have looked like?" "You'd better come and see it," Kennington replied. "It's almost finished."

Legs crossed at the ankles

Lawrence's brother, Arnold, came to see it and immediately offered to buy it from Kennington. "What's this worth to you?" he asked bluntly. Kennington gave a price of two thousand pounds and a cheque was drawn up there and then. But where to place it? It is not clear who first suggested the tiny parish church of St. Martin's-on-the-walls, Wareham in Dorset, but when seen today Kennington's effigy rests in the most wonderful example of a 1000 years old Anglo-Saxon church, accessible to all and in perfect harmony with its surroundings.



St. Martin's-on-the-walls, Wareham

Kennington sculpted the effigy in the style of a recumbent figure with one hand resting on the hilt of a curved Arabian khanjar dagger and one resting loosely at his side and with legs crossed at the ankles in the style of a thirteenth-century knight. Cross-legs and sword handling were features of effigies during this period, created to depict an image of repose and peace which complemented further characteristics which represented military vigour and alertness. This style persisted until the middle of the fourteenth-century when it fell out of favour to be replaced by the praying, straight-legged effigy. The meaning of the cross-legged feature was generally thought to have originated from Knights Templars or Crusaders who had died in the Holy Land, had died during the journey home, or had simply travelled east as a pilgrim or soldier. The romance of the pilgrim soldier persisted and was especially strong in the sixteenth-century, long after the period of the Crusades, reinforcing the theory. However, this crossed-legged Crusader connection has since been refuted by historians. Kennington, in reproducing the image of a 13th-century knight, was tapping into the popular beliefs held at the time.

  

Lawrence's crossed feet rest upon a piece of Hittite sculpture

Kennington was aided in his work by photos of the progress of the sculpture made by Wing Commander Reginald Simms, an amateur photographer and a former colleague of Lawrence at Bridlington during his RAF service. These undoubtedly helped Kennington during the development of the effigy, highlighting any errors. This ultimately resulted in a fine piece of work with an exquisite likeness of Lawrence in repose but also with an alertness and readiness for further action as depicted by his resting hand ready to un-sheath the curved blade. This feature was particularly pertinent when the effigy was finally placed in St. Martin's in September 1939.

Two years earlier, Churchill had contributed a piece to T.E. Lawrence By His Friends, a collection of reminiscences or impressions of Lawrence by those who knew him or had worked with him - a 'gallery of partial portraits', as Arnold Lawrence, the editor, put it. Churchill submitted a revision of an earlier obituary article published on 26 May 1935 in the News of the World newspaper, only seven days after Lawrence's death. He wrote, 'I fear whatever our need we shall never see his like again'. Churchill used much of this article at the unveiling of a memorial plaque by Kennington at the Oxford High School for Boys on 3 October 1936, an event at which Colonel and Mrs Newcombe attended and where Elsie Newcombe confessed to a bemused E.M. Forster that "Mrs Lawrence [T.E.'s mother] lovs me so much that I may kiss her here here with my rouged lips and leave spots on her face and still she doesn't mind."

Churchill included the Oxford text with further amendments in his 1937 opus Great Contemporaries where he made significant changes in both words and tone at a time when he was languishing in a political wilderness. With ominous world events pointing to another world war - in March 1936 Germany had reoccupied the Rhineland and four months later saw the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War - he used the occasion to highlight a pressing need for political effect. "All feel the poorer that he has gone from us. In these days dangers and difficulties gather upon Britain and her Empire, and we are also conscious of a lack of outstanding figures with which to overcome them."  This was not just about Lawrence. If Churchill had been side-lined at least he was able to remind his audience he was still available.

Even Lawrence's role in the RAF was utilised for Churchill's own political aims. In Friends, Churchill wrote simply that Lawrence experienced twelve years of "honourable service" in the RAF as an air-mechanic, concerned with the "mechanism of aeroplane engines, the design of flying boats." Two years later this employment was set aside in favour of a more far-reaching role that was used to bolster Churchill's own arguments for the strengthening of the aerial defence of Britain in line with the growth of the Luftwaffe.  "Those who knew him best miss him most; but our country misses him most of all. For this is a time when the great problems upon which his thought and work had so long centred, problems of aerial defence, problems of our relations with the Arab peoples, fill an even larger space in our affairs." 

With the spectre of war with Germany looming on the horizon, the tone of Churchill's revised portrait of Lawrence in Great Contemporaries became elegiac and inspirational to stir the emotions of the British public about to face their finest hour and in need of an Arthurian figure who was merely waiting for the call to arms once again. Kennington's effigy fitted the bill exactly. It would also not be long before Churchill was recalled from exile. 

NOTE

Photographs of Eric Kennington's effigy of T.E. Lawrence by Kerry Webber (December 2015), courtesy of the Rector and Churchwardens of St. Martin's-on-the-walls, Wareham.

ON THIS DAY - 19 May 1935

T.E. LAWRENCE (16 August 1888 - 19 May 1935)

And how beguile you? Death has no repose
Warmer and deeper than the Orient sand
Which hides the beauty and bright faith of those
Who make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.

When the great markets by the sea shut fast
All that calm Sunday that goes on and on:
When even lovers find their peace at last,
And Earth is but a star, that once had shone.

JAMES ELROY FLECKER

Eighty years ago today the archaeologist, soldier and writer, Thomas Edward Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, died following a motorcycle accident on a quiet Dorset lane close to his cottage, Clouds Hill.

END OF SERVICE

Brough Superior 1927, Reg RK 4907

T.E. Lawrence took his discharge from the R.A.F. on Monday 25 February 1935 in front of his Commanding Officer, Pilot-Officer J.F. Manning, who later became Air Commodore Manning. During the day, Lawrence wrote to Trenchard’s successor, the then current Air Chief Marshall, Sir Edward Ellington, giving his thanks for the forbearance he had shown in allowing him to complete his twelve year service. It was of course unusual for a humble airman to contact his Chief in this way and the moment was not lost on Lawrence:

‘Not many airmen, fortunately, write to their Chief of Staff upon discharge,’ he wrote, adding, ‘I’ve been at home in the ranks, and well and happy...So if you still keep that old file about me, will you please close it with this note which says how sadly I am going? The R.A.F. has been much more than my profession’. 

The next morning, Manning and a few colleagues, military and civilian, gathered at Bridlington harbour-side to see Lawrence off. He was wearing his familiar civvies of sports jacket and flannel trousers which were held in place at the ankles by bicycle clips. He had knotted a checked scarf at his neck and had tucked the ends into the front of his jacket. It was a crisp sunny Tuesday and he had a plan to cycle south to his old R.A.F. college at Cranwell and then onto Bourne in Lincolnshire to meet Frederick Manning, an Australian author Lawrence admired. Cambridge was also on his route where he could visit an old friend, Sydney Cockerell, Curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and where his brother Arnie lived with his wife Mary with their eight year old daughter, Jane. And then to Dorset and his cottage, Clouds Hill. It would be a long journey over a few days and he was keen to be on his way, partly to start eating up the distance, but mostly to face the dreaded moment that would severe him from the service that had been his home and refuge for the past twelve years. 

Unbeknown to him he was heading for a conflict with press reporters and photographers keen to discover his future intentions. His hoped-for sanctuary was about to be shattered. 

When he eventually reached Clouds Hill, he found the place besieged by the ‘press hounds’, as he called them. He immediately escaped to London and found lodgings in Waterloo, South London, under the not-very original name of T.E. Smith. After writing to Churchill to call in a favour he enlisted the help of Esmond Harmsworth, Chairman of the Newspaper Proprietors Association, to help persuade the press people to leave him alone. ‘If they agree to that,’ he wrote to Winstone, ‘the free-lancers find no market for their activities.’ 

Clouds Hill - An earthly paradise

A BRIEF TASTE OF LEISURE

It took a couple of weeks before his plea to be left alone was actioned but by the evening of 26 March he was back at Clouds Hill, now peaceful and deserted except for his solitary neighbour, Pat Knowles. This is where his books were, twelve hundred of them, each read at least once and worth reading again, and a gramophone to play music on. At last, perhaps this could be his refuge, a sanctuary from fame. 

The finishing touches to the refurbishment of his cottage kept him almost totally absorbed in its planning and execution over the coming weeks but he admitted to friends that he still needed time to heal the physical and emotional exhaustion he felt after his demanding role in the RAF, the wrench of its termination and his recent confrontations with the press. With those latter troubles now successfully dealt with following his approach to Churchill and Harmsworth he replied to Lady Astor on 8 May turning down an invitation to Cliveden during which she believed the reorganisation of the national Defence Forces would be offered to him by influential fellow guests that included Lionel Curtis and Stanley Baldwin: 

‘No wild mares would not at present take me away from Clouds Hill,’ he wrote. ‘It is an earthly paradise and I am staying here till I feel qualified for it. Also there’s something broken in the works as I told you: my will I think.’ 

He continued to write to his wide circle of correspondents, a mixture of bleak resignation regarding his situation and upbeat delight in his surroundings and in those simple tasks that went towards creating his own idiosyncratic home – a one man home he called it. Projects for the future were stored away until leisure time allowed them to be given the attention they deserved. Not that Lawrence did not feel slightly adrift in his new found circumstances, as this letter to the artist Eric Kennington illustrates:  

‘You wonder what I am doing? Well, so do I, in truth. Days seem to dawn, suns to shine, evenings to follow, and then I sleep. What I have done, what I am doing, what I am going to do, puzzle and bewilder me. Have you ever been a leaf and fallen from your tree in autumn and been really puzzled about it? That's the feeling.’

(TEL to Eric Kennington, 6 May 1935)  

13 MAY 1935

Then just as abruptly as retirement had interrupted a life once so full of action, and without sufficient time to enjoy his new-found leisure, he was thrown over the handlebars of his powerful Brough motorcycle on Monday 13 May whilst trying to avoid two errand boys on bicycles who were approaching him out of a dip in the road close to his cottage. Lawrence lingered in that place between life and death for six days before finally surrendering his fragile hold on life and he died on Sunday 19 May 1935, one last ‘Sunday that goes on and on,’ as his friend the poet James Elroy Flecker had written. He had experienced true leisure for less than twelve weeks.

Lawrence's friend Sir Ronald Storrs, one-time Oriental Secretary in Cairo and Military Governor of Jerusalem, was with him on the 21 May when they prepared him for his burial. His eloquent description of those final moments is worth recounting: 

‘I stood beside him lying swathed in fleecy wool; stayed until the plain oak coffin was screwed down. There was nothing else in the mortuary chamber but a little altar behind his head with some lilies of the valley and red roses. I had come prepared to be greatly shocked by what I saw, but his injuries had been at the back of his head, and beyond some scarring and discoloration over the left eye, his countenance was not marred. His nose was sharper and delicately curved, and his chin less square... Nothing of his hair, nor of his hands was showing; only a powerful cowled mask, dark-stained ivory alive against the dead chemical sterility of the wrappings. It was somehow unreal to be watching beside him in these cerements, so strangely resembling the aba, the kuffiya and the aqál of an Arab Chief, as he lay in his last littlest room, very grave and strong and noble... As we carried the coffin into and out of the little church the clicking Kodaks and the whirring reels extracted from the dead body their last “personal” publicity.’  

(P. 531 Orientations, Storrs) 

THE JOLLIEST THING ON WHEELS 

Lawrence wrote a long letter to Robert Graves (28.6.27) in which he corrected passages of Graves’ draft biography of Lawrence and offered information to help the fledgling writer complete the project. In it he stated his love for his Brough motorbike, the aptly named Boanerges, or ‘Sons of Thunder’, which he described as ‘the jolliest things on wheels’. In doing so he provided his own epitaph, explaining his craving for speed and boasting of not harming anyone else in its pursuit:  

‘Put in a good word for Boanerges, my Brough bike,’ he wrote. ‘I had five of them in four years, and rode 100,000 miles on them, making only two insurance claims (for superficial damage to machine after skids), and hurting nobody. The greatest pleasure of my recent life has been speed on the road. The bike would do 100 m.p.h. but I'm not a racing man. It was my satisfaction to purr along gently between 60 and 70 m.p.h. and drink in the air and the general view. I lose detail at even moderate speeds, but gain comprehension. When I used to cross Salisbury Plain at 50 or so, I'd feel the earth moulding herself under me. It was me piling up this hill, hollowing this valley, stretching out this level place: almost the earth came alive, heaving and tossing on each side like a sea. That's a thing the slow coach will never feel. It is the reward of Speed. I could write for hours on the lustfulness of moving swiftly.’ 

It was a fitting epitaph that aptly described the instrument and the manner of his passing.   

We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
Always a little further: it may be
Beyond the last blue mountain barred with snow,
Across that angry or that glimmering sea,
White on a throne or guarded in a cave
There lives a prophet who can understand
Why men were born: but surely we are brave,
Who make the Golden Journey to Samarkand. 

FLECKER

Dorset Treats

West Lulworth

The family gathered for Christmas 2012 in Dorset where we rented a delightful thatched cottage in the picturesque village of West Lulworth. Apart from a few research trips, it was our first time back to the UK for any significant period for over ten years. Happily my daughter had chosen a property that would evoke fond memories of bygone times. Christmas decorations that once adorned our own cottage in a small village three miles outside of Canterbury were shipped back over from Spain to decorate an inglenook fireplace that was eerily reminiscent of one I once owned. The oak bressummer beam, the brickwork, the log pile – it was all there, tricking me into thinking that time had stood still and it was the year 2000 again and the last English Christmas before we embarked on our big adventure. 

Lulworth Cove

A short walk from the cottage took us to the sheltered Lulworth Cove, once a flourishing smugglers’ haunt, and a starting point for some pleasant walks over the hills - in one direction to Durdle Door (on Christmas morning!) and in the other across Army Firing Range Walks to the Arish Mell cliffs which overlook the now inaccessible beach. It was here that T.E. Lawrence swam with his friend, Arthur Russell, the so-called ‘Patroclus’ of the small group of friends who regularly convened at Lawrence’s cottage, Clouds Hill. Russell was one of the pall bearers at Lawrence’s funeral, representing the Tank Corps period of his life alongside Stewart Newcombe as the representative of the Arabian years. 

Dorset and the West Country were mostly under water this winter so a walk to the local pub was more of an accomplishment than merely as a means of seeking entertainment or sustenance. But once reached there’s nothing quite like basking in the amazing breadth and scope of family conversations that comes from sitting for a couple of hours in a traditional pub supping pints of bitter beer while flood water flows through the kitchens!

Clouds Hill

Nearby, Lawrence’s Clouds Hill was looking forlorn and exposed, locked up for the winter and with its gardens shorn of the rhododendrons that once gave it the privacy that Lawrence craved. A sign on the gate read that the National Trust was managing a particularly virulent disease that affects the rhododendron ponticum and has caused extensive damage to trees, garden shrubs and heath plants throughout the west of the UK. Replanting with rhododendron hybrids and other native evergreens is planned to continue throughout the winter. At the moment, it looks as if a tank has veered off course and wrought havoc in the garden, creating an effective fire-guard against the heath fires that were a constant worry during Lawrence’s time. 

I had hoped to gain semi-private access to the cottage and was indeed given dates that unfortunately did not coincide with my time in the UK. The staff at the NT were very helpful in their suggestions but due to the festive holidays we were unable to make it happen. Colonel Newcombe had provided building materials and advice to Lawrence during the refurbishment of the cottage and I wanted to see if I could match his suggestions to the finished improvements. 

Newcombe had innovative ideas on heating homes and buildings. In an era when insulation in properties in the UK was not commonplace, he came up with practical suggestions that were ahead of his time. Where heat efficiency in the construction of buildings could not be improved, he developed a parallel idea that was explained in his paper of August 1954, Comfort and Cost of Heating Persons, Not Room Efficiency, which was sent out to relevant organisations and experts for their consideration and general discussion. Clouds Hill lacked any insulation and was served by two fireplaces and a ready supply of firewood. But to its owner it was ‘an earthly paradise,’ its simplicity reflecting his wishes. As he wrote to the artist and sculptor, Eric Kennington: ‘There cannot ever be a bed, a cooking vessel, or a drain in it - and I ask you... are not such things essential to life... necessities?’ A boiler and a bath was as good as it got for its owner who craved the luxury of hot water.

At Bovington Camp, the Tank Museum’s extensive collection was overwhelming. Its archive staff kindly brought out of storage the John Mansfield Crealock portrait of Newcombe - a real Christmas treat for both Newcombe and I, especially as he rarely sees the light of day.

See also: Recently discovered oil painting of S.F. Newcombe

Whether my family realised it or not, Christmas food shopping in Wareham was always going to be interrupted by a small detour to the local outfitters – A.F. Joy at 35 North Street - to pick up the key to the Saxon-era St. Martin’s Church where Kennington’s reclining effigy of Lawrence is undoubtedly the highlight, although the fragmented frescoes dating from the 12, 16 and 17th Centuries are certainly going to impress. 

Kennington's Effigy

There’s something about having the key to the church door and being responsible for locking up afterwards that reminded me of Derek Nimmo, an actor well-known for playing clerical roles (All Gas and Gaiters, Oh, Brother!, and its sequel Oh, Father! – I once interviewed him for a Dubai magazine as he was a regular visitor with his touring company, InterContinental Entertainment). The key was returned to the manager of the outfitters who is also the Church Warden, Merville Gover – the only man I have ever met that appears completely at ease with a measuring tape around his neck – and who readily gave me a copy of Lawrence’s birth and death certificates (for free) plus for a small fee a copy of Lawrence of Arabia, The Simple Facts by a former mayor of Wareham, Harry Broughton. 

Cheese, pickles and bread bought from the local farmers’ market down by the quay on the swollen River Frome would make a tasty lunch but before that I took the family for tea and crumpets at the Anglebury House Tea Rooms. Little did they know that this is where Lawrence supposedly took tea at a favourite window table. As we were the only people present we made ourselves comfortable and got into conversation with a friendly local who gave us directions to the best butcher in town. 

Reaching Dorchester via detours around flooded roads was necessary for those last minute purchases but with Christmas shopping done, the big day finally arrived. We walked over hills, we ate, we laughed, we slept, we ate again, we visited family, we drank, and then on Boxing Day I revealed a cunning plan – refreshments in the award-winning Moreton Tea Rooms. Nothing to do with Lawrence, honest!

It was raining and St.Nicholas’ Church, Moreton, was empty with a diffused light coming through the superb engraved windows created by Laurence Whistler, a post-Lawrence-era addition following partial destruction of the church by a fleeing German bomber in WW2. 

Constant companions

Lawrence’s grave is located a few metres away down a leafy country lane in an extension to the graveyard. It is approached by a brick path paid for by the T.E. Lawrence Society and can be found at the back of a well-maintained site. Someone had even placed a Welsh flag in a corner of his grave by his feet. The red dragon fluttered stiffly in the chill afternoon wind connecting Lawrence of Arabia, of Oxford, of Carchemish and finally of Dorset to Tremadog in Wales, his place of birth. To the left of the headstone was a bench donated by Arthur Russell over twenty years ago and engraved with the name Patroclus, the constant companion of Achilles in Greek mythology.

For Lawrence, Christmas in the ranks as a single man held little appeal. He once wrote to George Bernard Shaw's wife, Charlotte: 'Mankind punishes himself with such festivals.' Barracks became 'wet' and the men boisterous; Lawrence preferred to take his turn at guard duty to escape the excitement. 

In 1932, Lady Astor gifted him two heat lamps to warm the cottage and keep the damp off his books. The following Christmas he wrote to say how successful they had been. He then described how he had spent this year: ‘On Christmas day it was mild and grey,’ he wrote, ‘so we walked for fourteen miles and dinnered off a tinned chicken. The long walk made it taste good.’ 

Fourteen miles! Perhaps he walked across to the coast, maybe down to Lulworth which was generally off limits without a pass, past 'our' cottage with its smoking chimney to ‘smile at the sea.’ He once complained that it was too cold to bathe in the cove except in the rain. Then there were the gulls ‘questing through the spume’. He wrote: ‘They have the saddest, most cold, disembodied voices in the world.’

Our Christmas was nearly over. The weather had been Dorset weather. Lawrence accurately summed it up: 'wind and rain: rain and wind: wind: rain: and so on.' Corfe, with its castle, had a good pub. Still to be explored were Weymouth, Bournemouth, and Southampton, each with its Lawrence connections. It's easy to be sidetracked but it was time to go home to the sun. Happy days!