Which Oxford college did J.R.R. Tolkien join as a fellow in 1945?

J.R.R. Tolkien joined Merton College, Oxford, as a fellow in 1945. That year he moved from Pembroke College, where he had held an academic post since 1925, to become the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Merton.

Tolkien remained at Merton until his retirement in 1959. His Oxford career combined teaching and scholarship with the writing and revision of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Merton’s medieval buildings and academic environment formed part of the setting of his professional life during the period when his fiction reached its mature form.

Pembroke College is an especially common mix-up because Tolkien worked there for two decades and wrote much of The Hobbit and the early parts of The Lord of the Rings while associated with it. His Oxford affiliations therefore include both colleges, but the 1945 move was to Merton.