What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s first academic teaching post, beginning in 1920?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s first academic teaching post, beginning in 1920, was at the University of Leeds.

He joined Leeds as a reader in English language, later becoming a professor. During this period he continued his specialist work in medieval languages and literature and collaborated with E.V. Gordon on the influential edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, published in 1925.

Tolkien left Leeds for Oxford in 1925, where he became Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon. Because Oxford dominates accounts of his academic life, it is often incorrectly identified as his first teaching post. Leeds was the earlier appointment and an important stage in the development of the philological expertise that informed his fiction.