 Arnold Lawrence was a student at the British School at Rome in 1921 and then at the British School at Athens until 1926.In 1923, Lawrence worked on the excavation of Ur which was directed by Leonard Woolley under whom T. E. Lawrence had excavated at Carchemish before the First World War.In 1925 Lawrence married Barbara Inness Thompson (1902–1986), with whom he had one child, Jane Helen Thera Lawrence (1926–1978).