Which Oxford college employed J.R.R. Tolkien as a professor from 1959 until 1973?

Merton College employed J.R.R. Tolkien as a professor from 1959 until 1973.

Tolkien became the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature in 1959, succeeding C.S. Lewis in the university’s broader academic world as Tolkien’s career entered its final phase. He remained associated with Merton College until his retirement in 1971 and continued living and working in Oxford afterward.

This appointment followed Tolkien’s earlier Oxford positions. He was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College from 1925 to 1945, then Merton Professor of English Language and Literature from 1945 to 1959. The college names are therefore easy to confuse.

Tolkien’s academic career was central to his identity. His work in Old and Middle English, philology, and medieval literature informed both his scholarship and the invented languages and histories of Middle-earth.