J.R.R. Tolkien began teaching at Oxford University as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon in 1925.
The appointment brought Tolkien back to Oxford after academic work at the University of Leeds. His Oxford post focused on Old English language and literature, subjects that shaped both his scholarship and his fiction. He remained at Oxford for most of his academic career, later becoming Merton Professor of English Language and Literature.
The title is sometimes loosely described as a general English professorship, but the 1925 position was specifically connected with Anglo-Saxon, the older form of English language and literature. Tolkien’s expertise in Old English, Middle English, Welsh, Finnish, and other languages helped inform the linguistic design of his invented languages.