The Ron Penhall Collection: Important Awards and Memorabilia of Lawrence of Arabia Interest

An extremely rare Arab keffiyeh and agal worn by Gunner H. W. Bailey, a member of the Hedjaz Armoured Car Company in 1917-18, together with related documentation

comprising a piece of light brown cotton material, approximately 102cm. square and fringed, folded and roughly stitched into a triangle, together with a double circlet of rope in blue and brown cotton, part covered with metallic thread; together with one or two original photographs, one of them depicting Bailey wearing this headdress; five letters by Montagu Robert Lawrence (T. E. L’s elder brother) to Lawrence F. W. Bailey (the son of Herbert Wilson Bailey, in Canada), dated in the period 2 February to 25 June 1971, in one of which he recalls that he was with his mother on a riverboat in China when they received the news of T. E. L’s death; a small autograph album; a watercolour sketch based on Eric Kennington’s portrait of Auda Abu Tayi (the Sheikh of Howeitat), as per the 1926 edition of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and one or two other items of the Great War period (Lot) £1800-2200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Ron Penhall Collection: Important Awards and Memorabilia of Lawrence of Arabia Interest.

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The keffiyeh, a form of light shawl worn by the Arabs as a headdress covering a round soft cap, is held in place by the decorative circlet of rope, the agal. In the ‘Twenty-Seven Articles’ to Lawrence’s compendium for British officers working with the Arabs (August, 1917), he advised them to ‘Wear an Arab headcloth when with a tribe. Bedu have a malignant prejudice against the hat ... if you wear a hat your best Arab friends will be ashamed of you in public’ (see J. Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 1989, Appendix IV).



Herbert Wilson Bailey is verified as a member of the Hedjaz Armoured Car Company in the nominal roll published in Appendix I of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. In common with a handful of other members of the Machine Gun Corps (Motors), R.A., he was seconded for special duty in support of Lawrence’s operations, and himself receives mention in the war diary of the Hedjaz Armoured Car Section on account of being admitted to a field ambulance in early August 1918; so, too, for being detached to duty at Guetra in September 1918. He returned to his unit at Akaba at the end of the same month, and was finally discharged in April 1919.

Montagu Robert Lawrence (1885-1971), always known to his family as ‘Bob’, studied medicine and became a medical missionary in China, where he was accompanied by his mother, in 1923-27 and 1932-35. It is not clear when he first came into contact with Herbert Bailey, but it was probably before the 1939-45 War; the above mentioned autograph album includes the signatures of Sarah and Montagu Lawrence, dated October 1939.