J.R.R. Tolkien
1892-01-03 – 1973-09-02 · Philologist, novelist, professor
Author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings — Oxford undergraduate at Exeter, Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor at Pembroke, Merton Professor of English at Merton.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien spent most of his adult life in Oxford. He came up to Exeter College in 1911 to read Classics, switched to English Language and Literature, and graduated in 1915 before serving in the First World War. After early academic posts at Leeds, he returned to Oxford in 1925 as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, attached to Pembroke College. In 1945 he moved to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature, which he held at Merton College until retirement in 1959.
The Tolkien family lived at four houses on or near North Oxford between 1926 and 1953. The most famous is 20 Northmoor Road, where most of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were written; it carries a blue plaque. From 1953 they lived at 76 Sandfield Road in Headington. Tolkien was a founding member of the Inklings, the literary group that met on Tuesday mornings at the Eagle and Child on St Giles' and later at the Lamb & Flag opposite. He and Edith are buried in Wolvercote Cemetery, north of the city; their shared headstone is inscribed with the names "Beren" and "Lúthien" from The Silmarillion.
Sources: Wikipedia: J. R. R. Tolkien · The Tolkien Society — Tolkien's Oxford · Historic England — 20 Northmoor Road (Grade II)
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