What was the name of J.R.R. Tolkien’s first Oxford professorship?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s first Oxford professorship was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon.

He was appointed to the chair in 1925, after teaching at the University of Leeds and working as a lexicographer on the New English Dictionary. The Oxford position reflected his expertise in Old English language and literature, especially the study of texts such as Beowulf.

Tolkien held the Rawlinson and Bosworth chair until 1945. He then became Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, another major Oxford post, and remained there until his retirement in 1959.

The title can be confused with Tolkien’s later Merton professorship, which is better known outside specialist literary history. His academic career was not separate from his fiction: philology, historical languages, and the sound patterns of words were central to the creation of his invented languages and legends.