“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, November 15, 1922, United Kingdom

The results are in.

National:

Conservatives, 344 seats; party leader Bonar Law, 64, becomes Prime Minister.

Labour, 142 seats; doubling the number they held before, Labour becomes the main opposition party for the first time.

Liberals, 112 seats; split between its two branches, Liberals and National Liberals.

Prime Minister Bonar Law

Selected constituencies:

Dundee, Scotland, two seats:  Winners are Labour and, for the first time in any election, Scottish Prohibition; two National Liberal candidates, including incumbent Winston Churchill, about to turn 48, come in third and fourth.

Former Member of Parliament Winston Churchill

Combined English Universities, two seats:  Winners are Unionist and National Liberal, H. A. L. Fisher, 57, incumbent and cousin of novelist Virginia Woolf, 40; and Independent and Labour, Leonard Woolf, about to turn 42, husband of Virginia Woolf, come in third and fourth.

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Yesterday, the British Broadcasting Company began operating out of Marconi House in the Strand, over London station 2LO.

Today, the BBC has already expanded its reach by opening stations in Birmingham and Manchester.

BBC studio in Marconi House

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, and on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Early next year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, and about The Literary 1920s in Paris and New York City at the Osher program at Carnegie-Mellon University.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, August 30, 1922, RAF Recruiting Office, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London

A young blonde man walks into the recruiting office and fills out an application to enlist in the Royal Air Force. John Hume Ross, 28.

Except he isn’t.

He is Thomas Edward Lawrence, just turned 34, former colonel in the British Army, known for his role in the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the Great War, and until recently a bored bureaucrat in the government’s Foreign Office.

T. E. Lawrence during the Great War

Even though his supervisor there, Winston Churchill, 47, head of the Colonial Office and MP for Dundee, sent him back to the Middle East several times, Lawrence found the administrative work stultifying. Churchill finally accepted his resignation last month.

Since the end of the War, Lawrence has been working on his memoir, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and privately published, at his own expense, a few copies with the Oxford Press this summer.

During his service he realized how important air power now is in battle; he wants to re-enlist, this time with the RAF.

Anticipating problems if he tries to sign up at his age, earlier this year Lawrence met with Sir Hugh Trenchard, 49, the “father” of the RAF, at the Air Ministry to tell him of his plan. Trenchard agreed.

Now, at the recruiting office, Flying Officer W. E. Johns, 29, is suspicious of “Ross” and his fitness for service. Lawrence admits that he gave false information and Johns rejects him.

Lawrence contacts Trenchard who sends a message that Officer Johns must accept Lawrence.

He’s in. Again.

T. E. Lawrence in the RAF

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I and II covering 1920 and 1921 are available as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, and also in print and e-book formats on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Later in the year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.