Which Oxford college did J.R.R. Tolkien teach at as a professor from 1945?

J.R.R. Tolkien taught at Merton College as a professor from 1945.

In 1945 Tolkien became Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford. He held the position until his retirement in 1959 and was a Fellow of Merton College during that period.

His academic career had already included teaching at the University of Leeds and work at Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon. The Merton appointment placed him in one of Oxford’s historic colleges while he continued developing and revising his major writings.

Tolkien’s Oxford career is often summarized too broadly as simply “an Oxford professor.” The specific college matters: Merton was connected with his later professorship, whereas Pembroke College was associated with his earlier Oxford position. His university work and fiction developed alongside each other rather than in separate stages.