What was the name of the literary society J.R.R. Tolkien joined with school friends in Birmingham?

The literary society J.R.R. Tolkien joined with school friends was the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, commonly abbreviated TCBS.

The group developed among pupils at King Edward’s School in Birmingham. Tolkien, Geoffrey Bache Smith, Robert Gilson, and Christopher Wiseman were central members. They shared poetry, literature, conversation, and ambitions to create meaningful art, meeting in the school’s tea room and at Barrow’s Stores.

The TCBS mattered especially because it connected Tolkien with friends who encouraged his early literary interests. Its members were separated by the First World War, and Gilson and Smith were killed in 1916. Tolkien later remembered the group as an important formative influence. It is often confused with the Inklings, the later Oxford discussion group that included C. S. Lewis. The TCBS belonged to Tolkien’s school years, decades before The Lord of the Rings was published.