John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born at Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State on 3 January 1892, but his widowed mother brought him back to Birmingham as a child.

He went up to Exeter College, Oxford in 1910, and near the beginning of 1916 married Edith Bratt in Warwick.

He returned to Oxford briefly after the First World War to work for the Oxford English Dictionary, and then in 1920 took up an academic appointment at the University of Leeds. The 1921 census shows Tolkien (29), described as the Reader in English Language at that University, living at 5 Holly Bank, Headingley, Leeds with his wife Edith (32) and their sons John Francis Reuel Tolkien (3) and Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien (seven months), plus two servants.

In 1925 he was appointed Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford, attached to Pembroke College, and in January 1926 he moved with his family to 22 Northmoor Road in Oxford. In January 1930 they moved next door to 20 Northmoor Road. In 1937 he wrote The Hobbit there. The 1939 Register shows him at 20 Northmoor Road with his wife and children.

In 1945 Tolkien was appointed to the Merton Chair of English language and literature (which he held until his retirement in 1959). He moved out of 20 Northmoor Road in about 1947, and in 1949 he was living at 3 Manor Road in Oxford. In about May 1950 he moved with his family to 99 Holywell Street.

In 1953 he moved up to Headington and lived at 76 Sandfield Road (below) from 1953 to 1968.

Tolkien worked in the garage on the left of this photograph, and over its door there is this inscribed Portland stone plaque, which was carved in the 1970s by Bill Brown of Kidlington for the then owner, Mr Phillips.

On the left of the plaque is the dragon Smaug from The Hobbit. The Hill (as Hobbiton Hill was known) was to the north of the town of Hobbiton, and Bag End was tunnelled into this hill by Bungo Baggins. The dwarf runes marking the compass points are explained here. As this plaque was already in place, Tolkien's official Oxfordshire Blue Plaque was placed on his earlier home at 20 Northmoor Road.

The following books in the Lord of the Rings series were published while Tolkien lived in this house:

• The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)
• The Two Towers (1954)
• The Return of the King (1955)

He was a Roman Catholic, and while living in Sandfield Road worshipped at St Anthony of Padua Church in Headley Way after it opened in 1960.

In 1968, the attentions of the fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings at his home at 76 Sandfield Road drove Tolkien to flee from Headington to a bungalow in Bournemouth (now demolished).

After the death of his wife on 29 November 1971 Tolkien returned to Oxford to live in rooms provided by Merton College.

Tolkien died while paying a visit to a friend back in Bournemouth on 2 September 1973 and was buried in his in his wife's grave at Wolvercote Cemetery in Oxford. A requiem mass was held for him at St Anthony of Padua Church in Headington on 6 September 1973.

The photograph below shows a bronze relief of Tolkien as he looked during his time at Pembroke College, where he served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon from 1925 to 1945. It was created by his great-nephew Tim Tolkien and was unveiled at the college on 12 June 2024:

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:
put your library ticket number in the “Library Card Login” box

Wikipedia: J. R. R. Tolkien