Many of his school friends were killed in service.Īfter the War, Tolkien took a job with the Oxford English Dictionary, where he further explored his interest in language (mainly the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with W.) He also began working at the University of Leeds and was the youngest member of the academic staff at twenty-eight. In October, he contracted trench fever, remained sick, and was deemed unfit for service for the remainder of the war. In July 1915, he was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant and sent to France the following summer. He graduated from Exeter College, Oxford, in 1915 with first-class honours in English literature and literature. The couple was formally engaged in January 1913 and married on March 22nd, 1916.īritain entered WWI in August 1914, but Tolkien delayed enlistment to finish his degree. Upon receiving his letter, she quit the engagement and accepted Tolkien’s proposal. On the evening of his 21st birthday, Tolkien wrote a proposal to his love interest, Edith Mary Bratt, but in the five years since she had spoken to him, she had gotten engaged to someone else. In 19, he attended King Edward’s School in Birmingham and in 1911, enrolled at Exeter College, Oxford. His guardian disapproved of Tolkien’s interest (she was Protestant) and barred him from speaking to her until he was 21.Īs a teen, Tolkien excelled in Classical and modern languages at school. At the age of 16, Tolkien met Edith Mary Bratt, who was an orphan as well. Then, when Tolkien was twelve, Mabel passed away as well, leaving him in the care of Father Francis Morgan, a Catholic priest. Although Mabel was raised Protestant, she converted to Roman Catholicism a few years after the passing of her husband. Tolkien and his younger brother Hilary struggled with the climate of South Africa, and Mabel took the boys back to England to live with her parents, and when he was just four years old his father passed away. His father was of German ancestry, while his mother Mabel’s family, the Suffields, had been settled in Birmingham, England, since the 1810s.

(John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien was born on January 3rd, 1892, in the Orange Free State, part of present-day South Africa.

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