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Lawrence James

English historian and writer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ3429834
Source-derived summary

Edwin James Lawrence (born 26 May 1943, Bath, England), most commonly known as Lawrence James, is an English historian and writer.

Biography

James graduated with a BA in English & History from the University of York in 1966, and subsequently undertook a research degree at Merton College, Oxford. Following a career as a teacher, James became a full-time writer in 1985.

James has written several works of popular history about the British Empire, and has contributed pieces for Daily Mail, The Times and the Literary Review.

His wife Mary James was headmistress of St Leonards School from 1988 to 2000.

Bibliography

Crimea 1854–56: The War With Russia from Contemporary Photographs (1981)

The Savage Wars : British Campaigns in Africa 1870–1920 (1985)

Mutiny: In the British and Commonwealth Forces, 1797–1956 (1987)

Imperial Rearguard: The Last Wars of Empire (1988)

The Golden Warrior: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia (1990)

The Iron Duke: A Military Biography of Wellington (1992)

Imperial Warrior: The Life and Times of Field Marshal Viscount Allenby (1993)

The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (1994; revised ed. 1998; illustrated ed.

Editorial summary

“Lawrence James” enters the record as english historian and writer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lawrence, James and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1943, 1966, 1985, 1988—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1943-05-26. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Lawrence, James and English.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Lawrence James” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Lawrence, James and English provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3429834. VIAF identifies the subject as 109675234. The Library of Congress control number is n81064454. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943, 1966, 1985 and 1988.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Lawrence James”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Lawrence James primary sources, Lawrence James archive and Lawrence research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Lawrence James”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Lawrence James” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.