DH Lawrence Biography
From 1885 - 1912)Birth David Herbert Richards Lawrence drew his first breath on September 11 1885, in a small house in Victoria Street, Eastwood, near Nottingham. The fourth child of a coal miner, Arthur Lawrence and Lydia (nee Beardsall), it is not recorded if that first breath was taken easily, but within two weeks the child had bronchitis. ... The house in Victoria Street where the sickly baby Lawrence was born. ... It caused the family considerable hardship to allow the boy to take up this scholarship but in September 1898, three days after his thirteenth birthday Lawrence went to the High School. ... Once again, he made few friends; Frieda, his wife, wrote that one boy who took Lawrence home to tea was horrified to discover that his father was a miner and refused to have any more to do with him. Brinsley Colliery - source of the Lawrence family income. Lawrence spent much of what today would be thought of as leisure time (and there was precious little of it) helping his overworked, and beloved mother. ... Work At fifteen, with High School and the 19th Century over, Lawrence began work at Haywoods, a surgical appliance manufacturer in Nottingham. ... Now away from home for fourteen hours per day, excepting Sunday and one half day per week, working in dark and airless conditions, the frail health of the youth broke; within six months Lawrence had pneumonia.