The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 1: Chronology

July 1911 Ronald edits the July number of the King Edward’s School Chronicle and writes at least the editorial. – King Edward’s School awards Ronald the Milward Exhibition, worth £50.

July 1911–April 1912 At some time during this period Ronald will present two books to the King Edward’s School library: The Lost Explorers: A Tale of the Trackless Desert by Alexander Macdonald (1906), a novel about the Australian Outback, and Scouting for Buller by Herbert Hayens (1902), a novel about the Boer War. See note.

2 July 1911 Seventy-six cadets from King Edward’s School travel by special train to Windsor Great Park to participate in a review of the Officers Training Corps by King George V.

3 July 1911 547 officers, 17,440 non-commissioned officers and men, 470 horses, and 14 guns take part in a display of ‘manly patriotism’ (The Times, 3 July 1911, p. 7). A longer report in the Times of 4 July waxes eloquent about the event ‘among the ancient oak trees’ of Windsor Great Park ‘in glorious summer foliage’. The massed Corps ‘practically represented the entire intellectual reinforcement that the Military Services controlling the Empire will receive five or six years hence. It was no mummer’s rabble that defiled before the King, it was no semi-organized collection of train bands; it was a force of young soldiers, led by seasoned soldiers, trained by seasoned soldiers, quitting themselves like men, like citizens of a great Empire’ (p. 9).

8 July 1911 Jane Neave and Ellen Brookes-Smith (*Brookes-Smith family) become joint owners of Church Farm (to be renamed Phoenix Farm), Manor Farm, and adjoining parcels of land in Gedling.

26 July 1911 Summer term and Ronald’s time at King Edward’s School end with Speech Day and prize-giving, followed by musical and dramatic performances. Ronald is one of six recipients in the Classical First Class of the Head Master’s Leaving Prizes. The final item on the programme is a performance in Greek of Aristophanes’ play The Peace in which Ronald takes the part of Hermes, W.H. Payton is Trygaeus, Christopher Wiseman is Sicklemaker, Rob Gilson is Crestmaker, R.S. Payton is the Trumpet Seller, and T.K. Barnsley is in the Chorus. (Aristophanes’ Peace is summarized in a printed programme: ‘Trygaeus an Athenian farmer weary of the long war decides to drag up Peace to the light from the pit in which she is buried. With the aid of a number of his friends and the god Hermes he achieves this object in spite of the opposition of sundry interested persons….’) The evening closes with the national anthem sung in Greek. Ronald will later recall that ‘the school-porter was sent by waiting relatives to find me. He reported that my appearance might be delayed. “Just now,” he said, “he’s the life and soul of the party.” Tactful. In fact, having just taken part in a Greek play, I was clad in a himation and sandals, and was giving what I thought a fair imitation of a frenzied Bacchic dance’ (quoted in Biography, p. 49). See note.

August 1911 The Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board issue a report on King Edward’s School, Birmingham. In this – prepared evidently in the Board’s role as examiner of schools or school programmes rather than of individual students – Tolkien and some of his friends are singled out for mention for their work in Class 1 on Roman history:

The best work was undoubtedly done by [Robert Q.] Gilson in both papers…. [F.T.] Faulconbridge and [Sidney] Barrowclough were also very fair, and shewed considerable promise. Tolkien gave signs of a more acute and independent judgement than anyone else; his style also was more matured, but he seemed to have no control over it and sometimes became almost unintelligible; he was also very irrelevant, particularly on the Special Period, in which he only attempted four questions.

(Quoted in Giampaolo Canzonieri, ‘Tolkien at King Edward’s School’, Tolkien and Philosophy, ed. Roberto Arduini and Claudio A. Testi (2014), p. 149.)

August–early September 1911 Ronald joins a walking tour in the Swiss Alps organized by the Brookes-Smith family, along with his Aunt Jane Neave and his brother Hilary. See note. Both he and Colin Brookes-Smith, at that time a young boy, will later recount parts of the holiday, from which the following seems a reasonable reconstruction of events. The party apparently numbers twelve at the start. The Brookes-Smiths and their guests travel from England to Innsbruck, Austria by train and boat, and from there make their way to *Switzerland. They proceed mainly on foot, by mountain paths avoiding roads, carrying heavy packs, sometimes sleeping rough in barns, sometimes staying in inns or small hotels, often cooking and eating in the open. Their route takes them from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, Mürren, and the Lauterbrunnental, over the two Scheidegge to Grindelwald past the Eiger and the Mönch, and on to Meiringen, where they have a fine view of the Jungfrau. They then cross the Grimsel Pass to reach the Rhône and Brig.

From there (according to Tolkien, though he does not name the village) they make their way upwards again and stay at a châlet inn in Belalp at the foot of the Aletsch glacier. Ronald will later recall several incidents while in Belalp, including the fun he and others had by temporarily damming a rill that ran down the hillside towards the inn. The party venture onto the glacier a few days later, where some of the members, including Ronald, pose for a photograph (The Tolkien Family Album, p. 31) and Ronald comes ‘near to perishing’ in an avalanche: ‘the member of the party just in front of me (an elderly schoolmistress) gave a sudden squeak and jumped forward as a large lump of rock shot between us. About a foot at most before my unmanly knees’ (letter to Michael Tolkien, after 25 August 1967, Letters, p. 393; Colin Brookes-Smith, however, will recall that an avalanche occurred when the party was returning to Arolla – see below – from a day trip to a high-altitude hut).

From Brig (according to Colin Brookes-Smith) the party travels to Visp and Stalden, over a high pass from St-Niklaus to Gruben, over the Forcletta Pass to Grimentz, and on to Haudères, Arolla, and eventually Sion. Ronald will recall ‘our arrival, bedraggled, one evening in Zermatt and the lorgnette stares of the French bourgeoises dames. We climbed with guides up to [a] high hut of the Alpine Club, roped (or I should have fallen into a snow-crevasse), and I remember the dazzling whiteness of the tumbled snow-desert between us and the black horn of the Matterhorn some miles away’ (Letters, p. 393).

For Ronald this holiday will be a seminal experience. In later years he will often remark (like Bilbo in *The Lord of the Rings) that he would like to see mountains again, or say that some of his experiences on his trip to Switzerland were incorporated into his writings, for instance the ‘thunder-battle’ in *The Hobbit, Chapter 4. He will also note that the Silverhorn in the Alps is ‘the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams’ (Letters, p. 392). The scenery around the Lauterbrunnental and Mürren almost certainly will influence how he visualizes and draws Rivendell and Dunharrow in Middle-earth, while the Alps will appear as the Misty Mountains in pictures such as Bilbo Woke up with the Early Sun in His Eyes for The Hobbit (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 113; Art of The Hobbit, fig. 39).

17 August 1911 Christopher Wiseman writes to thank Ronald for postcards he sent from Switzerland.

September 1911 Ronald writes a poem, The New Lemminkäinen, in the style of the Kalevala, based on Kirby’s translation.

4 October 1911 Rob Gilson as Librarian of King Edward’s School writes to Ronald, pointing out that the latter has not returned two books, including the first volume of the Kalevala, to the School library, nor has he handed over the keys to the tea closet or the fine box. He thinks it a pity that Ronald, who is to play Mrs Malaprop in a performance of The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan at King Edward’s School in December, will not return to Birmingham until 7 October, the day after T.K. Barnsley (who is to play Bob Acres) leaves, so they will not be able to rehearse together. Gilson asks Ronald to read his part with him on the evening of 9 October.

End of the second week in October 1911 Ronald and L.K. Sands, another former pupil of King Edward’s School, are driven by R.W. Reynolds to Oxford in a car, then a novelty. Ronald will later recall that the weather was still hot, and everyone seemed to be dressed in flannels and punting on the river. He takes lunch at the Mitre Hotel (*Oxford and environs), and considers it a privilege to do so. Now he takes up residence in Exeter College; his rooms, no. 7 on the no. 8 staircase three flights up in a building known as the ‘Swiss Cottage’, comprise a bedroom and sitting room overlooking Turl Street. He will settle in quickly and make friends. He is one of 99 Roman Catholic students at Oxford, and one of 37 Catholics among 921 freshmen. (According to an article in the London Standard (‘Freshmen at Oxford’, 21 October 1911, p. 5), the last number is close to the Oxford average, about 200 fewer than those matriculating at Cambridge, and with fewer foreign students than usual). A new Roman Catholic chaplain, Father Lang of Brighton, has replaced the ailing Monsignor Kennard. Two second-year Catholic students, probably *Anthony Shakespeare and *B.J. Tolhurst, will take Tolkien in hand. See note.

15 October 1911 Michaelmas Full Term begins at Oxford University.

17 October 1911 Tolkien matriculates at Oxford.

Michaelmas Term 1911 Tolkien begins to read Literae Humaniores or Classics, mainly Greek and Latin authors but also Philosophy and Classical History. During his first five terms at Oxford he will attend lectures and classes to prepare himself for his first examination, Honour Moderations (popularly ‘Hon. Mods’), which he will take in February 1913. During this term he almost certainly attends lectures by *L.R. Farnell on Agamemnon by Aeschylus in translation, a set text, on Wednesdays and Fridays at 10.00 a.m. at Exeter College, beginning 18 October. For lectures on the other books set for Honour Moderations – Demosthenes, Homer, Plato, Sophocles, Euripides, Cicero, Tacitus, Virgil – he has a wide choice. Having chosen Comparative Philology as his Special Subject, he attends lectures by Joseph Wright on Gothic Grammar with Translation of the Gospel of St Mark, at 12.15 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Taylor Institution, beginning 19 October. But he also takes advantage of other aspects of Oxford life: clubs and societies, and entertainments, sometimes to the detriment of his studies. See note.

Second half of October 1911 Tolkien writes a poem, From Iffley (*From the Many-Willow’d Margin of the Immemorial Thames), describing Oxford as seen from the river at a village south-east of the city.

31 October 1911 Tolkien attends the Annual Freshman’s Wine at Exeter College. This begins at 8.45 p.m. with an entertainment, mainly of songs, and continues at 10.00 p.m. with a dance in the hall. Tolkien collects many signatures on his souvenir programme.

6 November 1911 Tolkien writes a poem, Darkness on the Road.

7 November 1911 Tolkien writes a poem, Sunset in a Town.

10 November 1911 Tolkien is granted a certificate by the University Registry, Oxford, exempting him from the preliminary examination (Responsions). He had already passed the relevant subjects in the Oxford and Cambridge Higher Certificate in July 1910. See note.

21 November 1911 Tolkien attends a Smoking Concert at Exeter College. The programme includes an orchestra playing selections by Sullivan, Tchaikovsky, Monckton, and Lehár, banjo solos, songs, and humorous recitations.

24 November 1911 Tolkien attends a Smoking Concert at Exeter College at 8.00 p.m. The programme includes the orchestra playing Sullivan, Offenbach, Bizet, Gounod, Suppé, and Hérold, songs, and a piano solo.

25 November 1911 Tolkien first borrows A Finnish Grammar by C.N.E. Eliot (1890) from the Exeter College library. Having already read the Kalevala in translation, he wants to know something of the language in which it was written. He will later recall that

it was like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me; and I gave up the attempt to invent an ‘unrecorded’ Germanic language, and my ‘own language’ [the Elvish language Qenya, later Quenya, which he begins to devise, see *Languages, Invented] – or series of invented languages – became heavily Finnicized in phonetic pattern and structure…. I never learned Finnish well enough to do more than plod through a bit of the original. [letter to W.H. Auden, 7 June 1955, Letters, p. 214].

He also now has access to books which help him to study the Welsh language, which has fascinated him since childhood. These interests will take up much time which Tolkien should be devoting to his classical studies, and they will be at least partly responsible for his unsatisfactory performance when he takes Honour Moderations at Oxford in February 1913. In late 1914 or early 1915 he will write in a paper on the Kalevala (*On ‘The Kalevala’ or Land of Heroes): ‘When [Honour Moderations] should have been occupying all my forces I once made a wild assault on the stronghold of the original language and was repulsed with heavy losses’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). – Tolkien also borrows volume 5 of the History of Greece by George Grote (1846–56) and the English Dialect Grammar by Joseph Wright (1905).

28 November 1911 Tolkien joins the King Edward’s Horse (*Societies and clubs), a territorial cavalry regiment, similar to the Officers Training Corps. Its membership limited to colonials, Tolkien qualifies because he was born in the Orange Free State. If he has not learned to ride before, he does so now.

December 1911 Tolkien continues to play rugby football. The Stapeldon Magazine of Exeter College for December 1911 will note (p. 110) that ‘the Freshmen produced some very sound forward material…. Tolkien is a winger pure and simple and might have had some consideration had he been but one in eight.’

?Last part of Michaelmas Term 1911 Tolkien and other students, mainly freshmen, form a new society, the Apolausticks (*Societies and clubs). He is its first President. The eleven members draw up a programme of meetings for Hilary Term 1912: these will be mainly discussions of various literary figures. Later programmes will include elaborate dinners and debates.

9 December 1911 Michaelmas Full Term ends.

Early to mid-December 1911 Tolkien returns to Birmingham. Early in the vacation he spends much of his time rehearsing for the performance of Sheridan’s The Rivals to be given on 21 December by members of the King Edward’s School Musical and Dramatic Society, augmented by himself and T.K. Barnsley. Other T.C.B.S. members are also prominent in the cast and organization: Christopher Wiseman as Sir Anthony Absolute, Rob Gilson as Captain Absolute, and G.B. Smith as Faulkland. (By now, Smith has become an accepted member of the T.C.B.S.) After the dress rehearsal, the cast march in full costume up Corporation Street to have tea in Barrow’s Stores.

14 December 1911 Tolkien attends the Oxford and Cambridge Old Edwardians Society Annual Dinner at the Midland Hotel, Birmingham, eight courses plus coffee.

15 December 1911 Tolkien takes part in the Old Boys’ Debate at King Edward’s School on the motion: ‘That this house approves the principle of gratuitous public service.’ Speaking in favour, he ‘declared that he felt so deeply on the subject that he had written a brochure upon it. The House requested him to read it, but it had unfortunately been left at home. Of the few magnificent quotations which were given from memory, none have survived. The Hon. gentleman then attacked the practicability of the scheme for payment of members, and applied it by analogy to school officers. The result would be financial and moral ruin’ (‘Debating Society’, King Edward’s School Chronicle n.s. 27, no. 191 (March 1912), p. 14). Among other speakers, Rob Gilson also argues in the affirmative, and T.K. Barnsley and Christopher Wiseman in the negative. The motion fails, 12 votes to 14.

16–19 December 1911 Tolkien stays with the Gilson family at their home, ‘Canterbury House’, at Marston Green near Birmingham. See note.

21 December 1911 Sheridan’s The Rivals is performed under the auspices of the King Edward’s School Musical and Dramatic Society at 7.30 p.m. in Big School. According to the King Edward’s School Chronicle,

the performance was a thorough success both artistically and financially…. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Mrs Malaprop was a real creation, excellent in every way and not least so in make-up. Rob Gilson as Captain Absolute made a most attractive hero, bearing the burden of what is a very heavy part with admirable spirit and skill; and as the choleric old Sir Anthony, C.L. Wiseman was extremely effective. Among the minor characters, G.B. Smith’s rendering of the difficult and thankless part of Faulkland was worthy of high praise. [‘The Musical and Dramatic Society’, n.s. 27, no. 191 (March 1912), p. 10]

Christmas 1911 Tolkien probably spends part of the vacation with his Incledon relatives at Barnt Green. They have the custom of performing theatrical entertainments during the holiday, including the farce Cherry Farm. probably written by Tolkien.

1911–1912 Drawings by Tolkien from this period reveal an interest in abstract ideas. Silent, Enormous, and Immense is dated December 1911. Firelight Magic, Sleep, and a ‘male caricature’ are dated to 1911–1912. Thought (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 33; and probably also Convention on its verso) and A Wish are dated to 1912. Other drawings which probably date from this time are Before (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 30), Ark!!!, and Afterwards (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 31).

1912 (#ulink_1cdca984-7b37-51ce-a9de-0848723b04ce)

1912 Tolkien possibly visits St Andrews again this year. He writes a short poem, The Grimness of the Sea (*The Horns of Ylmir), on the earliest extant manuscript of which he will later note: ‘original nucleus of ‘The Sea-song of an Elder Day’ (1912) (St Andrews)’. He will date another manuscript of this work to ‘1912 (sometime)’. See note. – Jane Neave retires from St Andrews and takes up residence and work at Phoenix Farm, Gedling.

21 January 1912 Hilary Full Term begins at Oxford.

Hilary Term 1912 Tolkien again has a choice of lectures on the various Greek and Latin authors set for Honour Moderations, and will attend Joseph Wright’s lectures on Comparative Greek Grammar on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12.15 p.m. in the Taylor Institution, beginning 24 January. During his time as an undergraduate he will have tutorials which Wright gives in his house in the Banbury Road; he will later recall ‘the vastness of Joe Wright’s dining room table (when I sat alone at one end learning the elements of Greek philology from glinting glasses in the further gloom)’ (*Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford, in *The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, p. 238). Tolkien will be invited on some Sunday afternoons to huge Yorkshire teas given by Wright and his wife Elizabeth. Wright is both a demanding and an inspiring teacher, and when he learns that Tolkien is interested in the Welsh language he encourages him to pursue it. – Christopher Wiseman informs Tolkien by letter that Vincent Trought died suddenly early on 20 January while convalescing in Cornwall. Although King Edward’s School will probably send a wreath, Wiseman wants to send one from the T.C.B.S. and asks if Tolkien would like to subscribe.

22 January 1912 It seems likely that when Tolkien receives Wiseman’s letter of 21 January he telegraphs in reply, asking for details of Trought’s funeral as he wishes to attend, and saying that he wishes to subscribe to the wreath. Wiseman replies this day by letter (which does not leave until the 5.45 a.m. collection on 23 January) that the funeral is to be at Gorran, near Falmouth in Cornwall, on 23 January, but he does not know the time. Even if Wiseman had telegraphed, Tolkien would not have had time to reach Cornwall, a train journey of some eight hours from Oxford. – The Apolausticks meet at 4.30 p.m. in *C.A.H. Fairbank’s rooms.

25 January 1912 Wiseman writes to thank Tolkien for sending a postal order for Trought’s wreath.

27 January 1912 The Apolausticks meet at 8.00 p.m. in *M.W.M. Windle’s rooms to discuss Lewis Carroll.

3 February 1912 The Apolausticks meet at 4.30 p.m. in *R.H. Gordon’s rooms.