What was the name of Tolkien’s academic position at Oxford when he delivered his 1936 Beowulf lecture?

When J.R.R. Tolkien delivered his 1936 Beowulf lecture, he was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. He held that professorship from 1925 until 1945.

The position placed Tolkien among the leading scholars of Old English language and literature. His work at Oxford included teaching and research on texts such as Beowulf, and his scholarly knowledge strongly informed the languages, names, and heroic traditions of Middle-earth.

In 1945 Tolkien moved to the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature, which he held until his retirement in 1959. Because both positions were at Oxford and both concerned English language or literature, biographies sometimes cause readers to conflate them.

The 1936 lecture predates his Merton professorship. Identifying the earlier title precisely helps place one of Tolkien’s most important academic contributions in its historical setting.