Which Oxford college did J.R.R. Tolkien serve as a professor and fellow?

J.R.R. Tolkien served as a professor and fellow of Merton College, Oxford.

He became Merton Professor of English Language and Literature in 1959 and remained at Merton College until his retirement in 1971. Before that, he had held academic posts at the University of Leeds and at Oxford’s Pembroke College, where he worked from 1925 to 1945.

This career history can cause confusion because Tolkien is also strongly associated with Pembroke College. He wrote much of The Hobbit and the early part of The Lord of the Rings while at Pembroke, but Merton was his later Oxford college and the institution connected with his final professorship. His academic career continued alongside his fiction writing.