What was the title of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Oxford professorship beginning in 1925?

Beginning in 1925, J.R.R. Tolkien held the title Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford.

Tolkien was appointed to the Oxford professorship in 1925 after teaching at the University of Leeds. The position placed him at the center of Old English scholarship, the academic field concerned with the language and literature of Anglo-Saxon England. His work on texts such as Beowulf shaped both his academic reputation and his approach to imaginative world-building.

Tolkien remained in the post until 1945, when he became Merton Professor of English Language and Literature. He held that later Oxford chair until his retirement in 1959. His academic career therefore covered both Old English studies and the broader history of the English language.

The title is sometimes shortened inaccurately to “Professor of Anglo-Saxon.” The formal name matters because the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship was a specific Oxford chair. Tolkien’s scholarship and teaching were central to his professional life, even after his fiction made him internationally famous.