What was J.R.R. Tolkien’s first academic teaching post, which he began at the University of Leeds in 1920?

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

After working on the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary, Tolkien moved into university teaching. At Leeds, he taught subjects connected with English language and medieval literature. His scholarship included Old and Middle English, Old Norse, and the historical development of languages.

Tolkien was promoted to Professor of English Language at Leeds in 1924. In 1925, he moved back to Oxford after being appointed Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College. His later Oxford career made him internationally famous, but Leeds was an important earlier stage in both his academic life and his development as a writer.

The title is sometimes simplified to “English professor,” which loses the specific wording of his first post. Tolkien’s expertise was closely tied to historical linguistics and philology, rather than only modern literary criticism. That distinction helps explain why invented languages became central to his fiction.