What organization did J.R.R. Tolkien help form with school friends at King Edward’s School?

J.R.R. Tolkien helped form the Tea Club and Barrovian Society with school friends at King Edward’s School in Birmingham.

The group, usually abbreviated TCBS, brought together Tolkien and several close friends who shared interests in literature, poetry, languages, and artistic ambition. Its name referred to meetings held in the school’s tea room and at Barrow’s Stores, a department store in Birmingham.

Members included Geoffrey Bache Smith, Christopher Wiseman, and Robert Gilson. The group’s friendships remained important as its members left school and served during the First World War. Tolkien later remembered the intense intellectual and creative hopes they shared as a formative influence.

The TCBS should not be confused with the Inklings, the later Oxford discussion group that included Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. The two groups belonged to different periods of Tolkien’s life: the TCBS grew from his school years, while the Inklings met mainly in Oxford during the 1930s and 1940s.