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No 'home' for Lawrence
By GARY BURGE
"A prophet is popular everywhere but in his own country," said the city librarian of Nottingham, England, Thursday, "and nothing is more true of D. H. Lawrence."
Nottingham and a neighboring town, Eastwood, in the eastern midlands of England, were Lawrence's birthplace and home for half his life. D. E. Gerard, the librarian, has established a permanent collection of Lawrence's writings. He showed photographs and slides Thursday at Watson Library of this area of Lawrence's youth.
"IF THERE WAS ever a local author, it is Lawrence," Gerard said. "There is no effort needed to call Lawrence a part of Nottingham. His individuality and eastern manner labeled him."
But despite the prominence of Lawrence as a modern writer, the people of Nottingham and Eastwood are "still quite unforgivable towards him," Gerard said.
"Very reluctantly." Gerard said, "Eastwood put a plaque above the door of the house Lawrence was born in and that is the only sign a visitor would see that Lawrence had anything to do with the town.
"The principal of Nottingham high school, where Lawrence attended, would not even admit that Lawrence was a student there." Gerard said. "But then the enlightenment came and his name was soon mentioned at every possible moment.
"MUCH TO THE school's pleasure, they discovered that Lawrence had carved his name on the sill and they carefully wiped away the thick, white paint which covered it and now treat the scratchings reverently, like part of a temple."
Part of the reason for Lawrence's unpopularity among his own people was the Lawrence always used local names for characters in his works.
"Even now, I can walk through Eastwood or Nottingham and see the names of his characters on streets and shopwindows," Gerard said. "Chatterly, for instance, was a librarian, and Lawrence combined his name with Constance, the name of a very prim and foreboding school maiden, who was mortally appalled when 'Lady Chatterly' was published."
Even during his childhood, Lawrence was not well-liked by his contemporaries.
QUARRELS BETWEEN his parents, while contributing greatly to Lawrence's theme of men and women together, also served to make him the subject of jeers and ridicule from neighbors.
"One of the biggest developments in Lawrence's career was the relationship of his mother and father," Gerard said. "Theirs was a completely incompatible relationship."
Mrs. Lawrence claimed her husband married her under false pretenses—on their marriage license, Arthur Lawrence had glorified his low job of a coal miner into a position which sounded like he owned several mines and was quite rich, Gerard said.
UNFORTUNATELY, or fortunately, depending how "one takes Lawrence's writing," Gerard said Lawrence often became the reason for his parents' arguing. Gerard said the author was certain that Lawrence developed many of his plots from just listening to his parents discussing him.
"Ernest (Lawrence's older brother) was the high hope of Mrs. Lawrence." Gerard said. "He
went to London to start a business but he died very young at the age of 24. D. H. then became the brunt of his mother's love and was smothered with affection which greatly influenced his thinking.
"Lawrence's father has somewhat been maligned by his son," Gerard said. "Lawrence himself was the first to admit that."
Gerard has been fighting a battle with both Nottingham and Eastwood to preserve the buildings, homes and scenes of Lawrence's childhood and writings.
"THE CHAPEL IN which Lawrence met Jesse, the girl who probably did more than anyone to encourage the young author to write and who was responsible for Lawrence's first published work, is about to be torn down and replaced with a Woolworth's five and dime," Gerard said.
"The people responsible say that the land is much too valuable commercially to be wasted."
WEATHER
The U.S. Weather Bureau predicts partly cloudy skies and warmer temperatures tomorrow, with the low tonight around 50 degrees. There is a ten per cent chances for precipitation tomorrow.
Daily Kansan Friday, May 19, 1967
11
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