What is the full title of Tolkien’s Oxford chair held from 1945 to 1959?

From 1945 to 1959, Tolkien held the title Merton Professor of English Language and Literature.

Tolkien moved into the Merton Professorship after two decades as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon. The Merton chair covered English language and literature more broadly, while still fitting his expertise in historical linguistics and medieval texts.

He continued teaching and researching at Oxford while writing and revising The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien retired from the professorship in 1959, although he remained active as a writer, scholar, and public figure. His academic career is notable because his fiction and scholarship developed alongside one another rather than in separate phases.

The two Oxford titles are easy to mix up. The Anglo-Saxon chair came first, from 1925 to 1945; the Merton professorship followed, from 1945 until his retirement. Naming the complete title matters because “Merton Professor” alone does not identify the subject of the chair.