Unknown Photographer, 1930

Lawrence's love of his motorcycle at high speed is well known, and he described this model, which he owned from January 1929 until March 1932, as a 'nobly running bike'. Broughs were generally considered the leading motorcycle marque and, from 1922 onwards, Lawrence owned a series of them, this being his sixth. A favourite transferable name for his Broughs was 'Boanerges' (the New Testament nickname for the disciples James and John, meaning 'Sons of Thunder'), and it was on his seventh Brough that Lawrence was killed in 1935.

This photograph of Lawrence with the manufacturer George Brough, leaning on sticks due to a recent race injury, was taken at Brough's Haydn Road works in Nottingham and was owned by the chief mechanic Isaac ('Ike') Webb (probably pictured in the top right corner of the image). It was one of the photographs mentioned in Webb's will, and was sold by his son in 1995. The photograph (in another print) is illustrated in Jeremy Wilson's exhibition catalogue T.E. Lawrence (National Portrait Gallery, 1988), p.216 (no.304).