People of Headington: J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) was born in the Orange Free State, but his widowed mother brought him back to Birmingham as a child. He came up to Exeter College, Oxford in 1910. He returned to Oxford briefly after the war to work for the Oxford English Dictionary, and then took up an academic appointment at the University of Leeds. In 1937 he wrote The Hobbit
In 1945 he came back to Oxford when he was appointed to the Merton chair of English language and literature, which he held until his retirement in 1959. He lived at 20 Northmoor Road from 1945 to 1953, and then moved into 76 Sandfield Road, Headington (below). The plaque over its garage door states that he lived at this house from 1953 to 1968.
Tolkien worked in the garage on the left of this photograph. The following books in the Lord of the Rings series were published while he lived in this house:
- The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)
- The Two Towers (1954)
- The Return of the King (1955)
In 1968 the attentions of the fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings at his Sandfield Road home drove Tolkien to flee from Headington to Bournemouth, where he remained until his death in 1973. Tolkien was a Roman Catholic and worshipped at St Anthony of Padua Church in Headley Way, where a requiem mass was held for him on 6 September 1973.
Websites about Tolkien:
- The Tolkien Society — The definitive website promoting Tolkien’s life and work
- The Lord of the Rings — Official website of the film
- Tolkien books — Harper Collins website
- Tolkien Collector — Dedicated to collectibles: games, music, figurines and books
- Tolkien in Wikipedia
There is a
much fuller entry on J. R. R. Tolkien in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ODNB online is available free to many public library users, including those in Oxfordshire:
enter L followed by your card number in the “Library Card Login” box
