What was the name of J.R.R. Tolkien’s undergraduate literary society at Oxford?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s undergraduate literary society at Oxford was the Tea Club and Barrovian Society.

The group is usually abbreviated T.C.B.S. It developed from friendships among pupils at King Edward’s School in Birmingham and continued when several members later studied at Oxford. Tolkien, Geoffrey Bache Smith, Christopher Wiseman, and Robert Quilter Gilson were central members.

The name referred to the school’s Tea Club and the Barrow’s Stores near the school, where the friends met. They shared poetry, literature, and ambitious ideas about writing. Their discussions became particularly important to Tolkien during his early adulthood and after the First World War brought devastating losses to the group.

The T.C.B.S. is not the same as the Inklings, the later Oxford discussion group that included C.S. Lewis. The T.C.B.S. belonged to Tolkien’s school and undergraduate years, while the Inklings met mainly at Oxford from the 1930s onward. The distinction matters because both groups are linked with Tolkien’s literary development.