Tolkien's BirminghamContinued
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The Oratory Mabel Tolkien's search for a church that she found sympathetic led her to Cardinal Newman's community at The Oratory on the Hagley Road. At the time of their arrival in 1902, the magnificent new church was still being built. The friendship of the parish priest, Father Francis Xavier Morgan, was to provide an important source of strength to the family for the trials that were to follow. |
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Oratory of St Philip Neri at Birmingham 'Little Rome in Birmingham', the Oratory Church was built between 1907-1910 in the Baroque style as a memorial to Cardinal Newman, founder of the English Oratory.
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25 Stirling RoadIt was whilst they were living in Oliver Road that Tolkien's mother was diagnosed as diabetic, and in 1904, while convalescing at the Oratory retreat near Rednal, she died. Ronald and Hilary were sent to stay with an aunt, Beatrice Suffield, at 25 Stirling Road, off the Hagley Road, where they remained for four years. The house is still there, though Tolkien's memories of it were gloomy. |
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The Two TowersJust around the corner in Waterworks Road was a building that must have left an impression on the young Tolkien, an extraordinary 96ft (29m) tower known as Perrott's Folly. It was built in 1758 by John Perrott and is Birmingham's oddest architectural feature. Near it stands a later Victorian tower, part of the Edgbaston Waterworks, and the pair are said to have suggested Minas Morgul and Minas Tirith, the Two Towers after which the second volume of the Lord of the Rings is named. |
| During his time in Birmingham many other ideas sank into the mind of the future novelist, to surface many years later. Tolkien probably came across the word Gamgee as the local name for cotton wool: Gamgee tissue. The inventor was a Birmingham surgeon, Dr Joseph Sampson Gamgee, who lived in the city until his death in 1880 at his house in Broad Street. Locally he is famous as the founder of the Hospital Saturday Fund. Tolkien used the name Sam Gamgee in Lord of the Rings for Frodo's faithful companion and the last of the ring-bearers. |
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Highfield RoadRonald Tolkien lodged for a while in Duchess Road where he met and fell in love with Edith Bratt, who was later to become his wife. But Tolkien was still only 16 at the time and his guardian Father Morgan attempted to put an end to the relationship by finding the two boys new lodgings at 4 Highfield Road, Edgbaston. This was to be his last address in Birmingham for it was here that Ronald heard that he had won an exhibition to Exeter College, Oxford, to study classics. |
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He went to Oxford University in 1911, and with the exception of
army service and a spell as lecturer at Leeds University he was to
spend the rest of his life in Oxford.
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