J.R.R. Tolkien became Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford in 1925.
He took the position at Oxford University after teaching at the University of Leeds. The chair focused on Old English and related areas, subjects central to Tolkien’s scholarly work and his lifelong interest in historical languages.
Tolkien’s academic research included Old English literature, medieval languages, and philology. His expertise in these fields helped shape the sounds, vocabulary, and historical depth of the invented languages used in his fiction.
He later held the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature at Oxford from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. The two Oxford posts are sometimes confused, but the Rawlinson and Bosworth chair came first, in 1925.