Arnold Walter Lawrence (2 May 1900 – 31 March 1991) was a British authority on classical sculpture and architecture. He was

Accra Accra (; tw, Nkran; dag, Ankara; gaa, Ga or ''Gaga'') is the capital and largest city of Ghana, located on the southern coast at the Gulf of Guinea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2021 census, the Accra Metropolitan District, , ...

he founded what later became the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board as well as the National Museum of Ghana. He was the youngest brother of

T. E. Lawrence Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918 ...

("Lawrence of Arabia") and his

literary executor The literary estate of a deceased author consists mainly of the copyright and other intellectual property rights of published works, including film, translation rights, original manuscripts of published work, unpublished or partially completed wo ...

Early life

Arnold Lawrence was born at 2

Polstead Road Polstead Road is a residential road that runs between Kingston Road and Hayfield Road to the west and the Woodstock Road to the east, in the suburb of North Oxford, England. Halfway along it forms the southern junction of Chalfont Road. The r ...

, Oxford, on 2 May 1900, the youngest of five sons born to Thomas Chapman (who became, in 1914, Sir Thomas Chapman, 7th Baronet), an

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

nobleman from

County Westmeath "Noble above nobility" , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Westmeath.svg , subdivision_type = Sovereign state, Country , subdivision_name = Republic of Ireland, Ireland , subdivision_type1 = Provinces o ...

, and Sarah Junner (1861–1959). The couple were unmarried but took the names "Thomas Robert Lawrence" and "Sarah Lawrence". Their second son was

who later found fame as "Lawrence of Arabia". He and Arnold Lawrence were close. The Lawrence children were brought up in Oxford by their mother who was very religious. But Arnold Lawrence expressed outspoken anti-religious views; he once stated "All religion is vermin". He attended the

City of Oxford High School for Boys The City of Oxford High School for Boys (a.k.a. Oxford High School for Boys and City of Oxford School) was founded in 1881 by Thomas Hill Green to provide Oxford boys with an education which would enable them to prepare for University. History ...

before joining

New College, Oxford New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at th ...

, obtaining a diploma in

Classical Archaeology Classical archaeology is the archaeological investigation of the Mediterranean civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Nineteenth-century archaeologists such as Heinrich Schliemann were drawn to study the societies they had read about i ...

in 1920 and graduating with a third in '' Literae Humaniores'' in 1921. Classical archaeology was his second choice; the young A. W. Lawrence had wanted to specialise in South-American archaeology, but no British university offered a course. Arnold Lawrence was a student at the

British School at Rome The British School at Rome (BSR) is an interdisciplinary research centre supporting the arts, humanities and architecture. History The British School at Rome (BSR) was established in 1901 and granted a UK Royal Charter in 1912. Its mission is " ...

in 1921 and then at the

British School at Athens , image = Image-Bsa athens library.jpg , image_size = 300px , image_upright= , alt= , caption = The library of the BSA , latin_name= , motto= , founder = The Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, called the foundation meeti ...

until 1926. In 1923, Lawrence worked on the excavation of Ur which was directed by

Leonard Woolley Sir Charles Leonard Woolley (17 April 1880 – 20 February 1960) was a British archaeologist best known for his Excavation (archaeology), excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia. He is recognized as one of the first "modern" archaeologists who excavat ...

, under whom T. E. Lawrence had excavated at Carchemish before the First World War. In 1925 Lawrence married Barbara Inness Thompson (1902–1986), with whom he had one child, Jane Helen Thera Lawrence (1926–1978). Youth-lawrence-cambridge-2017

Lawrence modelled for the sculptor Kathleen Scott in December 1922. The statue of "Youth" was later erected at the

Scott Polar Research Institute The Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) is a centre for research into the polar regions and glaciology worldwide. It is a sub-department of the Department of Geography in the University of Cambridge, located on Lensfield Road in the south o ...

in Cambridge. After T. E. Lawrence's death in 1935, A. W. Lawrence promoted his older brother's memory, collecting material connected to him, and attempting to correct misrepresentations of his character in the media. In 1936, A. W. Lawrence gave

Clouds Hill Clouds Hill is an isolated cottage near Wareham in the county of Dorset in South West England. It is the former home of T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") and is owned by the National Trust. The site is in the parish of Turners Puddle in P ...

to the National Trust; it is now a museum. T. E.'s enduring fame was a burden for A. W.; from his early twenties until the day he died, many people saw A. W. Lawrence primarily as the brother of someone else.

Academic career

He wrote widely on the subject of Greek architecture and sculpture as well as on fortifications in west Africa. In 1930 he was elected to the Laurence readership in

at the University of Cambridge. In 1944 he succeeded A. J. B. Wace as

Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology The Laurence Professorship of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge was established in 1930 as one of the offices endowed by the bequest of Sir Perceval Maitland Laurence.Fellowship at Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1951 he obtained a Leverhulme research fellowship for the study of ancient fortifications, a subject inherited from T. E. Lawrence. In 1951 he resigned from his post at Cambridge to become the Professor of Archaeology at the

University College of the Gold Coast The University of Ghana is a public university located in Accra, Ghana. It the oldest and largest of the thirteen Ghanaian national public universities. The university was founded in 1948 as the University College of the Gold Coast in the Br ...

where he established the

National Museum A national museum is a museum maintained and funded by a national government. In many countries it denotes a museum run by the central government, while other museums are run by regional or local governments. In other countries a much greater numb ...

and was the Secretary and Conservator of the Monuments and Relics Committee. He resigned from these posts in 1957 after Ghana became independent and soon after settled at Pateley Bridge in Yorkshire, later moving to

Bouthwaite Bouthwaite is a hamlet in the Harrogate district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated in Nidderdale, to the north of Pateley Bridge, close to the village of Ramsgill. The Nidderdale Way and Six Dales Trail both pass through the hamlet. T ...

. In the summer of 1985 Lawrence was interviewed by Julia Cave for a BBC ''

Omnibus Omnibus may refer to: Film and television * ''Omnibus'' (film) * Omnibus (broadcast), a compilation of Radio or TV episodes * ''Omnibus'' (UK TV series), an arts-based documentary programme * ''Omnibus'' (U.S. TV series), an educational progr ...

'' programme about T. E. Lawrence. In September 1985, when he and his wife could no longer drive, they moved to Langford, near Biggleswade, close to where their two grandchildren were living. Following his wife's death in November 1986, Lawrence moved to the house of a friend and fellow archaeologist, Peggy Guido (1912–1994) in Devizes, Wiltshire. There he worked on preparing a new edition of his 1935 ''Annotated Herodotus'' which was never completed. He died at 44 Long Street, Devizes, on 31 March 1991 aged 90. The unfinished Herodotus material was handed over to the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second- ...

, along with the rest of the Lawrence papers. Lawrence was a Fellow of the British Academy.

Books

*Lawrence, A. W. ''Later Greek Sculpture and its Influence.'' London: Jonathan Cape; New York: Harcourt Brace, 1927. *Lawrence, A. W. ''Classical Sculpture – Its History from the Earliest Times to the Death of Constantine.'' London: Jonathan Cape, 1929. *Lawrence, A. W., ed. ''Captives of Tipu: Survivors' Narratives'' London: Jonathan Cape, 1929. *Lawrence, A. W., ed. ''Narratives of the Discovery of America.'' London: Jonathan Cape, 1931. *Lawrence, A. W. ''Herodotus, Rawlinson's Translation Revised and Annotated.'' London: Nonesuch Press, 1935. *Lawrence, A. W., ed. ''T.E. Lawrence by His Friends.'' London: Jonathan Cape; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1937. *Lawrence, A. W., ed. ''Oriental Assembly'' by T.E. Lawrence. London: Williams & Norgate, 1939. *Lawrence, A. W. ''Greek Architecture.'' London: Penguin; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957; 2nd ed, 1967 (later editions revised by others). *Lawrence, A. W., ed. ''Letters to T.E. Lawrence.'' London: Jonathan Cape, 1962. *Lawrence, A. W. ''Trade Castles and Forts of West Africa.'' London: Jonathan Cape; Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1963. *Lawrence, A. W. ''Greek and Roman Sculpture.'' London: Jonathan Cape, 1972. *Lawrence, A. W. ''Greek Aims in Fortification.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.

References

External links

English translation of an article about A. W. Lawrence in the Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad, 15 August 1992
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawrence, A. W. 1900 births 1991 deaths People from Oxford English archaeologists Alumni of New College, Oxford Fellows of Jesus College, Cambridge People educated at the City of Oxford High School for Boys T. E. Lawrence Laurence Professors of Classical Archaeology 20th-century English historians English male non-fiction writers Honorary Fellows of the British Academy