Lawrence of Arabia

[Sidewinder]

Just some trivia:

from the early 20's Lawrence lived in England in a small cottage "Clouds Hill" with no electricity, running water or indoor toilet. One could pose the question "what phonograph did he have" - kind of as expected. It is still in his house which seems to be a small museum now.

The EMG needle cutter however was interestingly sold at auction in 2005

" Lawrence of Arabia's 'Expert' Gramophone Needle Fibre Cutter, constructed of steel, with scissor handles, 'Expert' impressed on one handle, 3 inches long, in velveteen bag with a hinged tin box of 'His Master's Voice' fibre needles, containing several needles,

Footnotes

Lawrence was a great enthusiast for music and gramophones. He had purchased a top quality hand-made Ginn Gramophone so that he could listen to records at Clouds Hill. Warwick James in his account of Lawrence's musical appreciation, published in 1937 in 'T. E. Lawrence by His Friends' writes: "It was characteristic that in order to obtain the fullest effects he devoted meticulous care to every mechanical detail rendering his machine as perfect as possible. He used wooden needles and found by experiment to obtain smoothness that dusting the surface of the record with graphite powder gave the best result." Ginn had invented fibre needles in 1924. R. G. Sims recorded that Lawrence was not entirely happy with the Ginn needle cutter and they tried to construct a machine of their own to sharpen the needles while he was stationed in Bridlington. However, it appears that by early May 1935 Lawrence decided to purchase the Ginn fibre needle cutter. An invoice for the purchase is made out to J. H. Ross (Lawrence's pseudonym) on E. M. Ginn headed paper, dated 10 May 1935. Just three days later, on 13th May, Lawrence suffered the motorcycle accident, which resulted in his death on the 19th May 1935.

Provenance: [1] Invoice dated 10 May 1935 from E.M. Ginn, Oxford Street, to J. H. Ross, Cloud Hill, Moreton for 6 shillings for one 'Expert' Fibre Cutter. (In the T.E. Lawrence Archive, Bodleian Library, Oxford); [2] After Lawrence's death, a number of letters and objects, which had belonged to Lawrence passed into the possession of Mr and Mrs Patrick Knowles, probably as the result of a gift from A. W. Lawrence, T. E.'s brother. This cutter was purchased at in March 1994 from the sale of the effects of Joyce Knowles, the former curator at Clouds Hill. The sale also included a number of records inscribed by Lawrence.

[epigramophone]

Very interesting, but not entirely accurate. E.M.Ginn did not invent the fibre needle, although it would have been entirely in character for him to claim to have done so. The fibre needle was invented by the Chicago businessman Frederick Hall, who commenced manufacture in 1907.

The full history of the fibre needle was the subject of an article by Robert Baumbach in the APS Journal of June 2018.