Photograph by Bassano (1921)

Sir Frederic Kenyon (1863-1952) was appointed Director of the British Museum in 1909. He had worked for the previous twenty years in the Museum's Department of Manuscripts, during which time he had achieved great distinction as a scholar in the fields of classical papyri and early biblical texts; he had also prepared editions of the letters and poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. He was an excellent chairman and administrator, and is considered to have been one of the greatest Directors of the British Museum. Although his previous career had been in librarianship and textual scholarship, his files relating to Carchemish show a thorough grasp of the problems involved in running a major excavation, a readiness to listen to expert advice, and an acute judgement of situations and personalities.

He met Lawrence on several occasions, the first being in 1911 after the initial trial season at Carchemish, when he was trying to assess the case for further excavations there. His judgement in all such matters was rigidly impartial. Lawrence had no success when he tried on one occasion to persuade him that a grave group acquired just outside Carchemish (i.e. within the ten-mile radius where the British Museum had a right to all purchases) should go to the Ashmolean.¹

Kenyon evidently had some regard for Lawrence, and when the Carchemish excavations were suspended at the beginning of the First World War he offered Lawrence work in the Museum. In 1927 Lawrence came into contact with Kenyon again when he presented a copy of the subscribers’ Seven Pillars to the British Museum Library.