Which Oxford college did J.R.R. Tolkien join as a professor in 1925?

J.R.R. Tolkien joined Pembroke College, Oxford, as a professor in 1925.

In that year he became Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University and was a fellow of Pembroke College. He held the professorship until 1945. During this period he taught and researched Old English language and literature, subjects that strongly informed his creative work.

Tolkien’s Oxford career is often associated with Merton College because he later became Merton Professor of English Language and Literature there. He held that later chair from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. The two colleges therefore belong to different stages of his academic career.

Pembroke was also important to Tolkien’s writing life. He worked on The Hobbit and much of The Lord of the Rings during his years there, while his academic expertise in languages, medieval texts, and mythology shaped the invented histories behind those books. His professional scholarship and fiction developed side by side.