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

10 March 1916 R.W. Reynolds writes to Tolkien, thanking him for a letter and for the poem Kortirion among the Trees which he likes. He asks to see more poems.

14, 17, 26 March and 16 April 1916 Wiseman sends to Tolkien at Brocton Camp, forwarded to the School of Signalling, a long letter written in stages. He writes at great length about the T.C.B.S. and his present hopes, and reminisces about the past. He defends his position concerning Kortirion among the Trees, feeling that Tolkien has not grasped what he was trying to express, and notes differences in their tastes. He, Gilson, and Smith have been corresponding about what to give Tolkien and Edith as a wedding present, but have decided to ask them what they want. He would like to hear about the wedding. Tolkien has written to him that ‘the Eldar, the Solosimpe, the Noldoli [different kindreds of Elves in his mythology] are better, warmer, fairer to the heart than the mathematics of the tide, or the vortices that are the winds …’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford).

16–18 March 1916 Tolkien writes, or continues to write, a poem, originally called The Wanderer’s Allegiance, concerning Warwick and Oxford (*The Town of Dreams and the City of Present Sorrow). Subsequently this is divided into three parts in a manuscript dated ‘March 16–17–18 1916’ with subtitles ‘Prelude’, ‘The Inland City’, and ‘The Sorrowful City’. A later manuscript will be inscribed in part ‘March 1916, Oxford and Warwick’.

16 March 1916 Tolkien attends his delayed degree ceremony in Oxford.

22 March 1916 Tolkien and Edith are married by Father Murphy after early Mass, in the Church of St Mary the Immaculate in Warwick. The witnesses are Anna M. Johnson, presumably a local friend or someone associated with the church, and Jennie Grove. After the ceremony they travel by train to *Clevedon in Somerset for a week’s honeymoon; while in the train they doodle on the back of a greetings telegram versions of Edith’s new name. During their honeymoon they visit *Cheddar Gorge and Caves which make a great impression on Tolkien.

31 March 1916 Sidgwick & Jackson rejects the volume of poems, The Trumpets of Faerie, that Tolkien had submitted for publication.

April 1916 Edith gives up the house in Warwick she had been renting with Jennie Grove. Tolkien finds lodgings for them in the Staffordshire village of *Great Haywood, which is near his camp and has a Catholic Church. The priest, Father Augustin Emery, welcomes Edith and gives the couple a special nuptial blessing at Sunday Mass.

6 April 1916 Smith writes to Tolkien at M Lines, Brocton Camp. He says that it is a long time since he has heard from Tolkien. He mentions, but cannot yet recommend, a literary agent to whom he has sent some of his poems, the Authors’ Alliance in London.

Mid-April–mid-May 1916 Tolkien takes a course of instruction at the Northern Command and Ripon Training Centre Signalling School, Farnley Park, *Otley, Yorkshire.

?Late April 1916 Hilary Tolkien is wounded, probably on the Roclincourt front near Arras.

28 April 1916 Acting Captain L.K. Sands, the fellow King Edward’s School student with whom Tolkien travelled to Oxford in October 1911, dies of machine-gun wounds received the previous day in France.

8 May 1916 Tolkien applies to the Adjutant, 13th Battalion, for leave from 13 to 17 May on completion of his signalling course. If leave is granted, his address will be 26 Hamilton Terrace, Leamington.

10 May 1916 A.S. Napier dies.

11 May 1916 The Adjutant, 13th Battalion, replies to Tolkien that no leave is being granted, but then strikes this order and grants him leave until the first train on 15 May.

13 May 1916 Tolkien’s ‘(Provisional) Instructor’s Certificate of Signalling (For Officers)’ is so dated, and signed by the Commandant at Farnley Park. This certifies that Tolkien has qualified, and states that he has obtained 95% accuracy in Written Examination, Examination in Telephony etc. (Oral and Practical), and Knowledge of Map Reading; and speeds for disc of 4 words per minute, for lamp of 6 words per minute, for buzzer of 10 words per minute, and for semaphore of 8 words per minute. – Tolkien presumably now takes his leave, returning to camp on 15 May.

23 May 1916 Smith sends Tolkien at Brocton Camp a telegram from West Bromwich saying that he is on leave until 29 May and asking if they can meet.

24 May 1916 Smith, presumably having received a reply from Tolkien, sends another telegram saying that he proposes to come to Great Haywood on Saturday afternoon and will stay one night.

26 May 1916 Smith sends a telegram to Tolkien c/o Mrs Kendrick (Edith’s landlady) in Great Haywood, giving the arrival time of his train.

27–28 May 1916 Smith visits the Tolkiens in Great Haywood. In a later letter he mentions having met both Edith and Jennie Grove.

?End of May 1916 Smith writes to thank Tolkien for a ‘splendid two days’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford).

2 June 1916 Army Headquarters, Cannock Chase, informs Tolkien by telegram that he is to join the British Expeditionary Force in France, but first will report to the Embarkation Staff Officer at Folkestone on 5 June. He is granted 48 hours leave.

3 June 1916 Tolkien and Edith spend the night at the Plough and Harrow Hotel in Hagley Road, Edgbaston.

4 June 1916 In the afternoon, Tolkien and Edith say farewell. He goes to London by train.

5 June 1916 Tolkien takes the 11.05 a.m. train from Charing Cross Station to arrive at Folkestone at 1.00 p.m. There he reports to the Embarkation Staff Officer and spends the night.

6 June 1916 Tolkien crosses the English Channel to Calais and travels to camp No. 32 at Étaples. Equipment he had bought – including a camp bed, sleeping bag, mattress, and spare boots – having failed to arrive, he begs, borrows, or buys replacements. – Possibly on this date he writes or begins to write a poem expressing his feelings for the land he has left, ending with ‘O lonely, sparkling isle, farewell.’ The earliest, undated version has the Qenya title Tol Eressëa, but later the poem will be called *The Lonely Isle (a literal translation from the Qenya) and will bear the dedication ‘For England’. Tolkien’s mythology is now closely tied to England, and the reference in the poem to a ‘fair citadel’ is to both Warwick and Kortirion. – On or after this date Tolkien probably also writes the poem *Habbanan beneath the Stars. He will later note on a revised manuscript of the work ‘Insp[ired] Brocton [Camp] Dec[ember] [19]15, written Étaples June 1916’.

7 June 1916 Tolkien moves to camp No. 25 at Étaples. There newly arrived soldiers are given final training and toughening up before being sent to the front. See note. Tolkien dislikes the hardened professional officers above him, who treat him like a schoolboy, but he will come to respect the ordinary enlisted men. Although as an officer he cannot make friends among them, he appreciates their qualities and will have closer contact with those who serve as his batman. He will soon be assigned from the reserve 13th Battalion to the active 11th Battalion, part of the 74th Infantry Brigade of the 25th Division of the British Expeditionary Force.

June–October 1916 It is now difficult for Tolkien to find the time or suitable conditions to write at length. But he manages to write or revise some poems, and he can develop his stories in his mind and continue to connect their strands so that when eventually he does have leisure to write them down, his stories are almost fully formed. He will later say in an interview that one could not write in the trenches: ‘You might scribble something on the back of an envelope and shove it in your back pocket but that’s all. You couldn’t write. You’d be crouching down among fleas and filth’ (Philip Norman, ‘The Hobbit Man’, Sunday Times Magazine, 15 January 1967, p. 36). But he will also say to his son Christopher in 1944: ‘Lots of the early parts of [the mythology] (and the languages) – discarded or absorbed – were done in grimy canteens, at lectures in cold fogs, in huts full of blasphemy and smut, or by candle-light in bell-tents, even some down in dugouts under shell fire’ (Letters, p. 78). By now he may have already begun to use a small notebook to jot down ideas, brief notes, and single sentences and names. – Since 5 June he has kept a concise diary, recording where he sleeps each night and when, in the coming months, he sees G.B. Smith: for this he uses a small, thin notebook, inscribed after Smith’s death ‘Diary of brief time in France and of the last seven times I saw G.B.S.’ The entries are marked with two symbols which may mark when Tolkien is able to attend Mass, and perhaps when he makes confession. See note. – He sends frequent letters to Edith, but as these are read by the censor Tolkien cannot say too much. He and Edith, however, have devised a secret code of dots which enables her to know roughly where he is.

?18 (possibly 11) June 1916 Smith, having returned to France, writes to Tolkien ‘attached 11th [Battalion] Lancashire Fusiliers, 25th I.B.D., 25 A.P.O. (S) 17, B.E.F.’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). He is sorry that Tolkien’s summer at Great Haywood had been cut short, and also that Tolkien has not been assigned to the same battalion as Smith.

22 June 1916 Gilson replies to a letter from Tolkien received the previous day on Gilson’s return from a night working party. He is cheered to receive letters from the T.C.B.S. (This seems to be Gilson’s final letter to Tolkien.)

25 June 1916 Smith writes to Tolkien, wishing him the very best of luck ‘in all that may happen to you within the next few months, and may we live beyond them to a better time’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford).

27–28 June 1916 Tolkien with other reinforcements travels to join his battalion at the front. After a slow train journey via Abbeville, having taken twenty-four hours to reach Amiens, he marches to the hamlet of Rubempré ten miles away. Gunfire can be heard in the distance.

28 June 1916 The war diary of the 11th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers notes the arrival of Second Lieutenant J.R.R. Tolkien.

29–30 June 1916 The 11th Battalion, as usual when not in the trenches, spends much of the day drilling and at bayonet practice, but Tolkien as an officer trained for signal duties will also spend time in specialist training.

30 June–1 July 1916 On 30 June, departing at 9.15 p.m., the battalion marches to billets in the village of Warloy-Baillon, arriving at about 1.00 a.m. on 1 July.

1 July 1916 The lengthy Battle of the Somme begins: the Allies aim to overcome strong German defences in the Somme River valley in north-west France. Prior to the battle (actually a series of sub-battles), British and French artillery have heavily bombarded German positions in preparation for a grand infantry assault. But when Allied troops climb out of their trenches at 7.30 a.m. this day and go ‘over the top’ they find that barbed wire has not been cut as expected, that the strongly built German defences have survived the shelling, and that the enemy is ready with deadly cross-fire. On the first day of the Somme the British casualties alone are 19,240 killed, 35,493 wounded, and 2,152 missing. Tolkien and the 11th Lancashire Fusiliers are in reserve, but he hears the thunder of the artillery and no doubt sees dead and wounded brought back behind the lines. – Among those killed in action this day is Lieutenant R.Q. Gilson, with the 11th Suffolks near La Boisselle.

2 July 1916 The 11th Battalion waits in readiness. – At 9.30 a.m. Tolkien attends Mass in a field at Warloy-Baillon.

3–5 July 1916 At 8.30 p.m. on 3 July the 11th Battalion parades and marches to Bouzincourt with the rest of the 74th Infantry Brigade, reaching it at midnight. Captain Lionel Ferguson of the 13th Cheshires, who followed the same route on this day, will write in his diary: ‘We left Warloy at dusk, meeting a very tired Highland Division coming out of the show. It was a sight new to me to see really tired men, they were just walking along in twos and threes, holding each other up for support, unshaved, covered with mud, and war worn, in fact never have I seen troops in worse condition’ (quoted in Malcolm Brown, The Imperial War Museum Book of the Somme (1996; reissued 2002), p. 118). Tolkien is able to sleep in a hut for the rest of that night and the two following nights. The 11th Battalion remains in reserve at Bouzincourt until 6 July and is kept occupied with drilling, training, and inspections.

?3–8 July 1916 During this period Tolkien writes two poems, A Dream of Coming Home and A Memory of July in England. The earliest manuscript of the first, dedicated ‘To my wife’, is dated ‘Bouzincourt July 4–8 1916’ and refers to ‘a vision of Great Haywood in May’. A later inscription on another manuscript assigns it to ‘Bouzincourt during the British barrage July 3 (?) 1916’. The manuscript of A Memory of July in England is dated ‘Bouzincourt July 7–8 1916’.

6 July 1916 At 1.00 p.m. A and C companies of the 11th Battalion parade and move to Usna Hill, arriving at about 4.00 p.m. At 11.00 p.m. they proceed to the trenches at La Boisselle. Two companies, including Tolkien, remain with the brigade at Bouzincourt to act as carrying parties for rations and ammunition. He re-reads ‘Edith’s letters with news from home and glance[s] once again at his collection of notes from the other members of the T.C.B.S.’ (Humphrey Carpenter, Biography, p. 83).

6–8 July 1916 G.B. Smith arrives in Bouzincourt on 6 July. When free from duties he and Tolkien meet on 6, 7, and 8 July, before Smith returns to the front. They talk as often as they can, ‘discussing poetry, the war, and the future. Once they walked in a field where poppies still waved in the wind despite the battle that was turning the countryside into a featureless desert of mud’ (Biography, p. 83).

7 July 1916 Companies A and C relieve the 2nd Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles in the trenches at 1.00 a.m., and are later sent over the top to help consolidate a position in some newly-captured German trenches near Ovillers. Enemy defensive fire is constant, and losses are heavy. In the afternoon, A Company is pulled back.

8–10 July 1916 C Company of the 11th Battalion overshoots the German trench that is its objective and finds itself in an exposed position. Although carrying parties from B and D Companies bring them supplies of wire and tools and help with the work during the night of 8–9 July, their position remains too exposed, and at 3.00 p.m. on 9 July they withdraw to the front line trenches held by A Company, having suffered heavy casualties. A and C Companies are relieved during the night of 9–10 July. Tolkien writes in his diary: ‘Battalion went into action between Ovillers and La Boisselle on Thursday [6th], coming out on Sunday night [9th] – I was in “B” team remained in Bouzincourt’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). See note.

10–13 July 1916 A and C Companies arrive at Bouzincourt at 7.00 a.m. on 10 July. At 4.00 p.m. the whole battalion parades and marches to Senlis-le-Sec, arriving about 6.00 p.m. There, over the next few days, it will be re-equipped and reorganized to fill gaps after the losses of 7–10 July: these include 2 officers and 10 other ranks killed, 3 officers and 112 other ranks wounded, 1 officer and 43 other ranks missing. On 12 July, after company training, the battalion marches at 10.00 a.m. to Albert to make room for the 9th Loyal North Lancashires, but are then recalled to Senlis-le-Sec.

12 July 1916 Smith sends Tolkien a field postcard on which he has ticked ‘I am quite well’.

14 July 1916 The 11th Battalion parades at 10.20 a.m. and moves to Usna Hill, where it bivouacks from 1.00 p.m. At 8.20 p.m. it proceeds to the front line trenches at La Boisselle. The men have to stumble through the long communications trenches to reach the front line, passing corpses ‘horribly torn by the shells. Those that still had faces stared with dreadful eyes’ (Biography, p. 83). Tolkien will find the communications system in chaos, and that many of the systems in which he has been carefully trained cannot be used since the Germans have succeeded in tapping field telephones, Morse code buzzers might be heard by the enemy, and visual signals might be seen by the Germans on higher ground. An attack by the 7th Infantry Brigade at 11.00 p.m. fails.

15 July 1916 A and B Companies of the 11th Lancashire Fusiliers take part in a second attack, going over the top at 2.00 a.m. ‘No Man’s Land’ between the opposing lines is now a sea of mud marked by barriers of barbed wire and scattered with bloated, decaying bodies it has been too dangerous to recover. The Lancashire Fusiliers suffer heavy losses from machine-gun fire and have to withdraw to the front line trenches. Later that day they move back to dugouts around La Boisselle to serve as support troops for their own 74th Infantry Brigade, who are preparing for another attack on Ovillers. Tolkien will note in his diary that he saw action at Ovillers on 15 July but slept in a dugout at La Boisselle. It is not clear whether, as a Signalling Officer, he would have gone over the top or remained in the front line trenches to manage communications. – Smith writes to Tolkien about Gilson’s death; see further, entry for 17 July 1916.

16 July 1916 Men from the 74th Infantry Brigade attack Ovillers at 1.30 a.m. with some success, but at about noon three bombing squads of the 11th Lancashire Fusiliers are ordered to reach a battalion of the 5th Royal Warwickshire Regiment which has been cut off. They attack so strongly that the Germans are driven back to their trenches and eventually surrender at about 7.30 p.m. At 8.00 p.m. the Lancashire Fusiliers reach the beleaguered Warwickshires, and eventually Ovillers is captured. Tolkien will note in his diary that he was in action until relieved during the night.

17 July 1916 The 74th Infantry Brigade is relieved during the night of 16–17 July and arrives at Bouzincourt at 6.00 a.m. Tolkien sleeps during the morning. At 4.30 p.m. the 11th Battalion parades and marches to bivouacs at Forceville, arriving at 6.30 p.m. – Today Tolkien probably receives a letter written by Smith on 15 July (postmarked 16 July): ‘I saw in the paper this morning that Rob has been killed. I am safe but what does that matter. Do please stick to me, you and Christopher. I am very tired and most frightfully depressed at this worst of news. Now one realises in despair what the T.C.B.S. really was. Oh my dear John Ronald what ever are we going to do?’ (quoted in Biography, p. 84). Although Gilson was killed early on 1 July his body was not recovered for some time, and he was at first listed only as missing.

18 July 1916 At 7.45 a.m. the 11th Battalion parades and marches to Beauval for a few days’ rest, arriving at 1.30 p.m. The men spend the rest of the day cleaning up.

19 July 1916 After physical training by company, the 11th Battalion parades at 10.00 a.m. for reorganization. At 2.30 p.m. the 74th Infantry Brigade is inspected by Major-General E.G.T. Bainbridge, General Officer Commanding the 25th Division. – Tolkien records in his diary the expenses of a dinner for himself and five other officers of A Company.