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20 January 1911 At a meeting of the King Edward’s School Literary Society the Head Master, Robert Cary Gilson, speaks about ‘out of doors literature’: mountaineering, al fresco in poetry, walking tours, and so forth.
27 January 1911 The King Edward’s School Debating Society addresses the motion: ‘This House considers that holidays are in no way beneficial, and demands their abolition.’ Rob Gilson opens in the affirmative, arguing that holidays are used for ‘sleep, food, [and] flimsy novels’. T.K. Barnsley likens the desire to work our brains without rest to ‘attempting to set the Koh-i-Noor [diamond] in a jelly’. Sidney Barrowclough objects to Barnsley’s ‘foody topics and his foody initials’ (i.e. ‘T.K.’, ‘tea cake’), Vincent Trought views the motion from three standpoints, R.S. Payton argues that ‘term time [is] for play and holidays for work’, and Christopher Wiseman discusses ‘the subject of morning rising’ (‘Debating Society’, King Edward’s School Chronicle, n.s. 26, no. 185 (February 1911), pp. 8, 9). Ronald himself takes Barnsley’s remark as a personal insult, since he is in the habit of wearing a yellow pencil in his mouth (i.e. a pencil with a yellow barrel, a feature of the Koh-i-Noor brand). The motion fails, 6 votes to 13.
February 1911 As Debating Society Secretary, Ronald almost certainly writes the report of the meetings of the Society on 18 November, 2 and 16 December, and 27 January published in the King Edward’s School Chronicle for February 1911. As Football Secretary, he possibly also writes the report of matches published in the same number.
4 February 1911 Ronald plays in a 1st XV away match against the University of Birmingham, at the University Ground. King Edward’s School loses, 0 to 14.
10 February 1911 The King Edward’s School Debating Society addresses the motion: ‘That Slavery is a desirable social condition and that this House deplores its disappearance.’ (No reports of this or subsequent Debating Society meetings in February–March 1911 appear in the King Edward’s School Chronicle.)
14 February 1911 Ronald plays in a 1st XV away match against Birkenhead School. King Edward’s School loses, 6 to 14.
17 February 1911 At a meeting of the King Edward’s School Literary Society Ronald reads a paper on the Norse sagas. According to the King Edward’s School Chronicle, he considers the Völsunga Saga one of the best of them, and though it is inferior to Homer in most respects, in some it excels: ‘There is no scene in Homer like the final tragedy of Sigurd and Brynhild’ (‘Literary Society’, n.s. 26, no. 186 (March 1911), p. 19). The paper concludes with a sketch of the Norse religion and quotations from various sagas.
24 February 1911 The King Edward’s School Debating Society addresses the motion: ‘This House would welcome the establishment of a Central Imperial Parliament.’
March 1911 Ronald writes a poem, *The Battle of the Eastern Field, a humorous account of a football match. It will be published in the King Edward’s School Chronicle for this month. As Football Secretary, he possibly also writes the report of matches published in the same number of the Chronicle.
8–9 March 1911 Through an estate agent, Jane Neave bids for property in Gedling. She is the high bidder for Church Farm (later called Phoenix Farm), but must give the current tenant, farmer Arthur Lamb, one year to leave.
10 March 1911 Ronald takes part in a Latin debate, in the role of ‘T. Portorius Acer Germanicus’. He will write a report in Latin entitled Acta Senatus, to be published in the King Edward’s School Chronicle for March 1911. The editorial for this number will note that pupils ‘are reminded by the ever active Secretary of the Debating Society’, i.e. Ronald Tolkien, about the forthcoming Open Debate (p. 17).
13 March 1911 W.H. Payton reads a paper on Charles Lamb at a meeting of the King Edward’s School Literary Society.
15 March 1911 The King Edward’s School Officers Training Corps participates in a field exercise with cadets from other neighbouring schools and the University of Birmingham. The King Edward’s School cadets go by train to Northfield, south of Birmingham proper, and thence to Ley Hill, where they take part in an attack on another group’s position on Griffin’s Hill. The weather is bitterly cold, indeed the exercise is halted for half an hour by a storm of sleet. Later the cadets march to the University refectory, accompanied by a band, and have tea. The King Edward’s School contingent is so cheered that it insists on marching back to the School instead of taking the train.
17 March 1911 R.W. Reynolds reads a paper, ‘Powder and Jam’, on once-popular literature meant to instruct and amuse, to a meeting of the King Edward’s School Literary Society.
18 March 1911 Ronald takes part in a 1st XV away match at Bromsgrove, against Bromsgrove School. King Edward’s School loses, 3 to 8. This is Ronald’s last game for the school. In the King Edward’s School Chronicle a report will sum up his contribution to the team during 1910–11: ‘A light forward, who possesses pace and dash, and is a good dribble. He has done much good individual work, especially in breaking away from the scrum to assist the three-quarters. His tackling is always reliable, and he follows up hard. Has been a most capable and energetic Secretary. Captain of Measures’’ (n.s. 26, no. 187 (June 1911), p. 49). In addition to the games played against teams from other schools or colleges Ronald has also played in inter-house football matches: these are not reported in the Chronicle but in 1910–11 Measures’ House played six games as well as a play-off when it tied with another house.
31 March 1911 Six short papers are presented by students at a meeting of the King Edward’s School Literary Society. These include one by Christopher Wiseman on the Birmingham printer John Baskerville; a paper by Sidney Barrowclough (in absentia) on Birmingham historian William Hutton; and one by R.S. Payton on the writer Walter White.
4 April 1911 Ronald takes part in the annual Open Debate. The motion is: ‘That the works attributed to William Shakespeare were written by Francis Bacon.’ He speaks in favour, pouring
a sudden flood of unqualified abuse upon Shakespeare, upon his filthy birthplace, his squalid surroundings and his sordid character. He declared that to believe that so great a genius arose in such circumstances commits us to the belief that a fair-haired European infant could have a woolly-haired prognathous Papuan parent. After adducing a mass of further detail in support of the Hon. Opener, he gave a sketch of Bacon’s life and the manner in which it fitted into the production of the plays, and concluded with another string of epithets.
Among other speakers, Rob Gilson is ‘astonished that the firmly established tradition which had satisfied English people for close on 300 years should now be set so lightly aside. Never indeed had any secret been so well kept as that of Bacon’s if his was the authorship’ (‘Debating Society’, King Edward’s School Chronicle n.s. 26, no. 187 (June 1911), pp. 43, 44). T.K. Barnsley speaks in opposition to Ronald; W.H. Payton argues that the author of Shakespeare’s plays was a lawyer; Christopher Wiseman scarcely believes in Shakespeare but does not think it proved that Bacon wrote his plays; and Rob Gilson likewise argues eloquently in the negative. The motion fails, 37 votes to 52. As Debating Society Secretary Ronald thanks R.W. Reynolds, the Vice President, for all that he has done for the Society.
27 April 1911 Christopher Wiseman writes to Ronald (addressing him as ‘Gabriel’, one of his nicknames) after hearing that he has been appointed Librarian at King Edward’s School. Wiseman will be a Sub-Librarian, and intends to ask their friend Vincent Trought to become one too.
Summer term 1911 Much of this term is taken up by examinations spread over six weeks. Between the exams the pupils have much spare time, even allowing for revision. Some of the senior boys – Sidney Barrowclough, Rob Gilson, R.S. Payton, W.H. Payton, Ronald Tolkien, Vincent Trought, and Christopher Wiseman – form an unofficial group called the Tea Club. They make tea for themselves in the King Edward’s School library cubby-hole and (against the rules) bring in food. Later and especially during vacation they meet in the Tea Room at Barrow’s Stores in Corporation Street, Birmingham; they have a favourite secluded table between two settles which they name the Railway Carriage, and now call themselves the Barrovian Society after ‘Barrow’s’. The most important members of the ‘T.C.B.S.’ (Tea Club, Barrovian Society), as the group becomes, will be Ronald, Rob Gilson, Christopher Wiseman, and eventually G.B. Smith, who will remain closely associated when other members drift away. – As a member of the Officers Training Corps Ronald takes part in drills and in the House competition for the Drill Cup.
June 1911 Ronald edits the June number of the King Edward’s School Chronicle and writes the editorial. As Debating Society Secretary, he almost certainly writes the report of the meeting of the Society on 4 April that appears in the same number. In an account of the members of the Debating Society Ronald is described as ‘an energetic Secretary who does not consider that his duties excuse him from speaking. Has displayed great zeal in arranging meetings throughout the session and considerable ingenuity in advertising them. He is an eccentric humorist who has made many excellent speeches, at times rather burdened with anacolutha. Made one valiant effort to revive Beowulfic oratory’ (‘Debating Society’, n.s. 26, no. 187 (June 1911), p. 45).
June or July 1911 Ronald writes a poem about King Richard I and the Crusaders, A Fragment of an Epic: Before Jerusalem Richard Makes an End of Speech. See note.
15 June 1911 The annual inspection of the King Edward’s School Officers Training Corps takes place. The cadets exhibit their drilling abilities to Major W.L. Loring. Measures’ House, of which Ronald is a member, comes third out of four in the competition for the House Drill Shield.
21 June 1911 Ronald travels to London as one of eight cadets from the King Edward’s School Officers Training Corps chosen to line the route for the coronation of George V. At about 11.00 a.m. they arrive at Lambeth Park, adjoining Lambeth Palace, where they join other cadets in a camp. The cadets are then free until the evening when all the assembled corps are drilled by the company commander, Major F.M. Ingram of Bradfield College. Ronald will later recall that the year 1911 was ‘the annus mirabilis of sunshine in which there was virtually no rain between April and the end of October, except on the eve and morning of George V’s coronation’ (letter to Michael Tolkien, c. 25 August 1967, Letters, p. 391). See note.
22 June 1911 Reveille is sounded at 4.45 a.m. At about 6.00 a.m. the cadets march along the Albert Embankment by way of Vauxhall Bridge to Constitution Hill adjoining Buckingham Palace. They arrive at about 7.00. The various processions do not leave the Palace until 9.30; in the interim the cadets are able to watch various troops moving into position and to see Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener pass by. The King’s procession sets out at 10.30, but the cadets catch only a glimpse as it travels down the Mall and does not pass in front of them. They then have another long wait until, soon after 2.00 p.m., the procession returns from Westminster Abbey along Constitution Hill immediately in front of the cadets and provides them with ‘a spectacle never to be forgotten’ (‘The Coronation’, King Edward’s School Chronicle n.s. 26, no. 188 (July 1911), p. 60). They are too far away to witness the Royal Family’s appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, and are then marched back to camp.
23 June 1911 The cadets help line the streets for a Royal Progress and are in position near Buckingham Palace soon after 8.00 a.m. At 11.00 a.m. the Royal Family leave the Palace. According to the reporter for the King Edward’s School Chronicle – possibly Ronald Tolkien himself – the procession ‘was even more gorgeous than that of the previous day’. The cadets do not wait for the return of the procession but march back to camp for dinner and then return to Birmingham, arriving at about 10.30 p.m. ‘with the feeling that we had had the experience of our lives’ (‘The Coronation’, July 1911, p. 60).
29 June and 1 July 1911 Ronald attends the King Edward’s School Athletic Sports at the School Grounds. He comes third in the One Mile Open race.
July 1911 Ronald edits the July number of the King Edward’s School Chronicle and writes at least the editorial. – King Edward’s School awards Ronald the Milward Exhibition, worth £50.
July 1911–April 1912 At some time during this period Ronald will present two books to the King Edward’s School library: The Lost Explorers: A Tale of the Trackless Desert by Alexander Macdonald (1906), a novel about the Australian Outback, and Scouting for Buller by Herbert Hayens (1902), a novel about the Boer War. See note.
2 July 1911 Seventy-six cadets from King Edward’s School travel by special train to Windsor Great Park to participate in a review of the Officers Training Corps by King George V.
3 July 1911 547 officers, 17,440 non-commissioned officers and men, 470 horses, and 14 guns take part in a display of ‘manly patriotism’ (The Times, 3 July 1911, p. 7). A longer report in the Times of 4 July waxes eloquent about the event ‘among the ancient oak trees’ of Windsor Great Park ‘in glorious summer foliage’. The massed Corps ‘practically represented the entire intellectual reinforcement that the Military Services controlling the Empire will receive five or six years hence. It was no mummer’s rabble that defiled before the King, it was no semi-organized collection of train bands; it was a force of young soldiers, led by seasoned soldiers, trained by seasoned soldiers, quitting themselves like men, like citizens of a great Empire’ (p. 9).
8 July 1911 Jane Neave and Ellen Brookes-Smith (*Brookes-Smith family) become joint owners of Church Farm (to be renamed Phoenix Farm), Manor Farm, and adjoining parcels of land in Gedling.
26 July 1911 Summer term and Ronald’s time at King Edward’s School end with Speech Day and prize-giving, followed by musical and dramatic performances. Ronald is one of six recipients in the Classical First Class of the Head Master’s Leaving Prizes. The final item on the programme is a performance in Greek of Aristophanes’ play The Peace in which Ronald takes the part of Hermes, W.H. Payton is Trygaeus, Christopher Wiseman is Sicklemaker, Rob Gilson is Crestmaker, R.S. Payton is the Trumpet Seller, and T.K. Barnsley is in the Chorus. (Aristophanes’ Peace is summarized in a printed programme: ‘Trygaeus an Athenian farmer weary of the long war decides to drag up Peace to the light from the pit in which she is buried. With the aid of a number of his friends and the god Hermes he achieves this object in spite of the opposition of sundry interested persons….’) The evening closes with the national anthem sung in Greek. Ronald will later recall that ‘the school-porter was sent by waiting relatives to find me. He reported that my appearance might be delayed. “Just now,” he said, “he’s the life and soul of the party.” Tactful. In fact, having just taken part in a Greek play, I was clad in a himation and sandals, and was giving what I thought a fair imitation of a frenzied Bacchic dance’ (quoted in Biography, p. 49). See note.
August 1911 The Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board issue a report on King Edward’s School, Birmingham. In this – prepared evidently in the Board’s role as examiner of schools or school programmes rather than of individual students – Tolkien and some of his friends are singled out for mention for their work in Class 1 on Roman history:
The best work was undoubtedly done by [Robert Q.] Gilson in both papers…. [F.T.] Faulconbridge and [Sidney] Barrowclough were also very fair, and shewed considerable promise. Tolkien gave signs of a more acute and independent judgement than anyone else; his style also was more matured, but he seemed to have no control over it and sometimes became almost unintelligible; he was also very irrelevant, particularly on the Special Period, in which he only attempted four questions.
(Quoted in Giampaolo Canzonieri, ‘Tolkien at King Edward’s School’, Tolkien and Philosophy, ed. Roberto Arduini and Claudio A. Testi (2014), p. 149.)
August–early September 1911 Ronald joins a walking tour in the Swiss Alps organized by the Brookes-Smith family, along with his Aunt Jane Neave and his brother Hilary. See note. Both he and Colin Brookes-Smith, at that time a young boy, will later recount parts of the holiday, from which the following seems a reasonable reconstruction of events. The party apparently numbers twelve at the start. The Brookes-Smiths and their guests travel from England to Innsbruck, Austria by train and boat, and from there make their way to *Switzerland. They proceed mainly on foot, by mountain paths avoiding roads, carrying heavy packs, sometimes sleeping rough in barns, sometimes staying in inns or small hotels, often cooking and eating in the open. Their route takes them from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, Mürren, and the Lauterbrunnental, over the two Scheidegge to Grindelwald past the Eiger and the Mönch, and on to Meiringen, where they have a fine view of the Jungfrau. They then cross the Grimsel Pass to reach the Rhône and Brig.
From there (according to Tolkien, though he does not name the village) they make their way upwards again and stay at a châlet inn in Belalp at the foot of the Aletsch glacier. Ronald will later recall several incidents while in Belalp, including the fun he and others had by temporarily damming a rill that ran down the hillside towards the inn. The party venture onto the glacier a few days later, where some of the members, including Ronald, pose for a photograph (The Tolkien Family Album, p. 31) and Ronald comes ‘near to perishing’ in an avalanche: ‘the member of the party just in front of me (an elderly schoolmistress) gave a sudden squeak and jumped forward as a large lump of rock shot between us. About a foot at most before my unmanly knees’ (letter to Michael Tolkien, after 25 August 1967, Letters, p. 393; Colin Brookes-Smith, however, will recall that an avalanche occurred when the party was returning to Arolla – see below – from a day trip to a high-altitude hut).
From Brig (according to Colin Brookes-Smith) the party travels to Visp and Stalden, over a high pass from St-Niklaus to Gruben, over the Forcletta Pass to Grimentz, and on to Haudères, Arolla, and eventually Sion. Ronald will recall ‘our arrival, bedraggled, one evening in Zermatt and the lorgnette stares of the French bourgeoises dames. We climbed with guides up to [a] high hut of the Alpine Club, roped (or I should have fallen into a snow-crevasse), and I remember the dazzling whiteness of the tumbled snow-desert between us and the black horn of the Matterhorn some miles away’ (Letters, p. 393).
For Ronald this holiday will be a seminal experience. In later years he will often remark (like Bilbo in *The Lord of the Rings) that he would like to see mountains again, or say that some of his experiences on his trip to Switzerland were incorporated into his writings, for instance the ‘thunder-battle’ in *The Hobbit, Chapter 4. He will also note that the Silverhorn in the Alps is ‘the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams’ (Letters, p. 392). The scenery around the Lauterbrunnental and Mürren almost certainly will influence how he visualizes and draws Rivendell and Dunharrow in Middle-earth, while the Alps will appear as the Misty Mountains in pictures such as Bilbo Woke up with the Early Sun in His Eyes for The Hobbit (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 113; Art of The Hobbit, fig. 39).
17 August 1911 Christopher Wiseman writes to thank Ronald for postcards he sent from Switzerland.
September 1911 Ronald writes a poem, The New Lemminkäinen, in the style of the Kalevala, based on Kirby’s translation.
4 October 1911 Rob Gilson as Librarian of King Edward’s School writes to Ronald, pointing out that the latter has not returned two books, including the first volume of the Kalevala, to the School library, nor has he handed over the keys to the tea closet or the fine box. He thinks it a pity that Ronald, who is to play Mrs Malaprop in a performance of The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan at King Edward’s School in December, will not return to Birmingham until 7 October, the day after T.K. Barnsley (who is to play Bob Acres) leaves, so they will not be able to rehearse together. Gilson asks Ronald to read his part with him on the evening of 9 October.
End of the second week in October 1911 Ronald and L.K. Sands, another former pupil of King Edward’s School, are driven by R.W. Reynolds to Oxford in a car, then a novelty. Ronald will later recall that the weather was still hot, and everyone seemed to be dressed in flannels and punting on the river. He takes lunch at the Mitre Hotel (*Oxford and environs), and considers it a privilege to do so. Now he takes up residence in Exeter College; his rooms, no. 7 on the no. 8 staircase three flights up in a building known as the ‘Swiss Cottage’, comprise a bedroom and sitting room overlooking Turl Street. He will settle in quickly and make friends. He is one of 99 Roman Catholic students at Oxford, and one of 37 Catholics among 921 freshmen. (According to an article in the London Standard (‘Freshmen at Oxford’, 21 October 1911, p. 5), the last number is close to the Oxford average, about 200 fewer than those matriculating at Cambridge, and with fewer foreign students than usual). A new Roman Catholic chaplain, Father Lang of Brighton, has replaced the ailing Monsignor Kennard. Two second-year Catholic students, probably *Anthony Shakespeare and *B.J. Tolhurst, will take Tolkien in hand. See note.
15 October 1911 Michaelmas Full Term begins at Oxford University.
17 October 1911 Tolkien matriculates at Oxford.
Michaelmas Term 1911 Tolkien begins to read Literae Humaniores or Classics, mainly Greek and Latin authors but also Philosophy and Classical History. During his first five terms at Oxford he will attend lectures and classes to prepare himself for his first examination, Honour Moderations (popularly ‘Hon. Mods’), which he will take in February 1913. During this term he almost certainly attends lectures by *L.R. Farnell on Agamemnon by Aeschylus in translation, a set text, on Wednesdays and Fridays at 10.00 a.m. at Exeter College, beginning 18 October. For lectures on the other books set for Honour Moderations – Demosthenes, Homer, Plato, Sophocles, Euripides, Cicero, Tacitus, Virgil – he has a wide choice. Having chosen Comparative Philology as his Special Subject, he attends lectures by Joseph Wright on Gothic Grammar with Translation of the Gospel of St Mark, at 12.15 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Taylor Institution, beginning 19 October. But he also takes advantage of other aspects of Oxford life: clubs and societies, and entertainments, sometimes to the detriment of his studies. See note.
Second half of October 1911 Tolkien writes a poem, From Iffley (*From the Many-Willow’d Margin of the Immemorial Thames), describing Oxford as seen from the river at a village south-east of the city.
