The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 1: Chronology. Christina Scull

December 1928 Tolkien and Kenneth Sisam examine Peter Haworth of University College viva voce on his D.Phil. thesis at 11.30 a.m. in the Examination Schools.

      5 December 1928 Tolkien and Kenneth Sisam sign their report on the examination of Peter Haworth. – Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

      7 December 1928 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting., at which he raises the question of payment of examiners in the Final Honour School. He is appointed to a committee to consider the matter.

      8 December 1928 Michaelmas Full Term ends.

      11 December 1928 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Library Committee meeting at 2.15 p.m. in the Library.

      Christmas 1928 Tolkien, as ‘Father Christmas’, writes to his sons. Although his letter is dated 20 December, it is probably not finished in time for Christmas Day, as an added note dated Boxing Day (26 December) states that the North Polar Bear failed to post it earlier. The letter proper tells how the North Polar Bear fell down stairs while carrying Christmas parcels. It is accompanied by a picture of the accident. Father Christmas brings paints for John and ‘railway things and a farm and animals’ to Michael and Christopher. – If Tolkien conceived The Hobbit in summer 1928, he possibly now begins to tell the story to his children, and to add to the tale (while retelling previous parts) each successive Christmas until c. 1932. Once he begins to write it down, he also makes a few illustrations and maps for the story to add to the ‘home manuscript’. See further, entry for The Hobbit in Reader’s Guide.

1929

      ?1929–1930 At the request of R.E.M. Wheeler (later Sir Mortimer Wheeler), during 1928–9 director of excavation at a site at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire with prehistoric, Roman and post-Roman remains including a temple to Nodens, Tolkien writes a note on the name Nodens. – During this period Tolkien and C.S. Lewis become allies in a campaign to reform the Oxford English School syllabus.

      1929 Tolkien works on a Qenyatic script. – Tolkien becomes a member of the Philological Society (*Societies and clubs). – Hilary Tolkien marries Magdalen Matthews in Evesham. After the wedding, the bride and groom travel to Oxford to spend the rest of the day with Ronald and Edith.

      2 January 1929 Tolkien writes to E.V. Gordon, referring to Gordon’s plan to start an Icelandic collection at the University of Leeds and enclosing songs.

      9 January 1929 The committee appointed at the 7 December meeting of the English Faculty Board meets to consider the question of the remuneration of examiners in the Final Honour School. The members agree that there is a need for some adjustments, but think it would be advisable for the chairman to take the matter up informally with the appropriate authorities.

      17 January 1929 An article by Tolkien, Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad, is published in Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, vol. 14.

      20 January 1929 Hilary Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: the Old English Exodus (continued), Tuesdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 22 January; Old English Verse (Miscellaneous Pieces), Thursdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 24 January; Völsunga Saga and Related Lays, Fridays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 25 January; Legends of the Goths, Tuesdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 22 January; and The Germanic Verb (continued), Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 24 January.

      23 January 1929 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

      28 January 1929 Tolkien gives a public lecture at Leeds, Celts and the Teutons in the Early World. A report will note that

      the English School owes a very great debt to Professor Tolkien; but it is not only for academic reasons that his old students remember him, and some of them were glad to share again his obvious regret that the lecture must somehow be terminated at the end of the allotted period, though the subject is nowhere near exhausted; to be flattered by the assumption that they could instantly recognise Old Welsh and [Proto-Germanic] forms; to know that on some minute point all the world’s available learning was placed before them; to plunge down a remote and devious path, and emerge in the old familiar fashion at ‘our old friend Vortigern, of Hengist and Horsa fame’. [‘Professor Tolkien on Celts and Teutons’, The Gryphon n.s. 10, no. 4 (February 1929), p. 146]

      8 February 1929 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. The committee on the payment of examiners in the Final Honour School presents a report written out by Tolkien.

      20 February 1929 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

      15 March 1929 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. The Board resolves that George S. Gordon and Tolkien should draw up a memorandum, to be submitted to the General Board of the Faculties, on the need for the appointment of a Lecturer in English Language. – Tolkien also attends a Pembroke College meeting.

      16 March 1929 Hilary Full Term ends.

      28 April 1929 Trinity Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: Old English Verse (Miscellaneous Pieces) on Thursdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 2 May; and (Old Norse) Carmina Scaldica on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 30 April.

      9 May 1929 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Library Committee meeting at 2.15 p.m. in the Library.

      14 May 1929 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

      17 May 1929 At a meeting of the English Faculty Board, in Tolkien’s absence, he is appointed to a committee to consider the annual scheme of lectures.

      20 May 1929 Tolkien, with H.C. Wyld and C.T. Onions, signs a letter to the Secretary of Faculties asking the University to consider appointing a lecturer to teach ‘English Language’. The draft of the letter is in Onions’ hand, but the typescript appears to have been made by Tolkien. The submission points out that there are three official teachers of English Language: the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature (Wyld), the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon (Tolkien), and the Reader in English Philology (Onions), and that ‘the two Professors normally give from two to three times the amount of public instruction required by statute, not infrequently dealing with elementary parts of their subjects…. All three, if they are to consider the needs of the School, are obliged to neglect considerable sections of the subjects which ought to be adequately represented in the University, and still the linguistic syllabus of the School is not covered’ (Oxford University Archives FA 4/5/2/2).

      31 May 1929 Tolkien certifies that R.A. Crook of Somerville College has completed course work towards her B.Litt.

      5 June 1929 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

      12 June 1929 Tolkien certifies that A.C. Corlett of St Edmund Hall has completed course work towards his B.Litt.

      13 June 1929 English Final Honour School Examinations begin. There are 105 candidates. E.V. Gordon should be an external examiner, but is granted a leave of absence; Tolkien serves in his place.

      18 June 1929 Priscilla Mary Reuel Tolkien is born at home in Oxford, the fourth and last child, and only daughter, of Ronald and Edith Tolkien. Her godparents are *Francis de Zulueta, Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, and *Helen Buckhurst, former Fellow and English language tutor at St Hugh’s College, Oxford.

      21 June 1929 Tolkien is elected to represent the Faculties of Theology, Law, Literae Humaniores, Modern History, English Language and Literature, Medieval and Modern European Languages and Literature, and Oriental Languages on the