At which university did J.R.R. Tolkien become a professor in 1924, before Oxford?

J.R.R. Tolkien became a professor at the University of Leeds in 1924, before returning to Oxford. He was appointed the university’s Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at age 32.

Tolkien had joined Leeds in 1920 as a reader in English language. During his time there, he worked with E. V. Gordon on the influential scholarly edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, published in 1925.

His Leeds years also helped shape his teaching and linguistic scholarship. He returned to Oxford in 1925 to become Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College.

The university is sometimes overlooked because Tolkien spent more of his academic career at Oxford. Leeds was nevertheless an important early stage in both his professional life and his development as a philologist.