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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973)

© Mark W. Swarthout

John Ronald Reuel (J.R.R.) Tolkien was born in Bloemfontain, the capital of The Orange Free State in South Africa in 1892. His father, Arthur, was manager of a Bank of Africa branch office; his mother, Mabel, had moved there to marry Arthur in April of 1891. The area was terribly hot in the summer and very dry and dusty in the winter. John spent his early years here and vaguely remembers some of the incidents that took place. Every morning he would join his father planting saplings in a garden near the house, a pleasant occupation for any boy. While a toddler, John fell onto a tarantula, which bit him. He ran crying to the nurse who sucked the venom out of the bite. John had few vivid memories of these years, but recalls running through the dry grasses in the yard.

Returning to England in 1895 with their mother, John and his younger brother, Hilary, were settled outside of Birmingham. Unfortunately, their father contracted rheumatoid fever before he could join them and died of a hemorrhage in February of 1896. John's last memory of his father is watching him paint the name A.R. Tolkien on a trunk for the trip back. Mabel was left to raise the boys by herself and her decision to convert to Catholicism alienated most of the family. A distant uncle paid John's tuition for a term or two of school.

The boys spent pleasant days running about their new neighborhood. The lush green hillsides were a vivid contrast to the dust and brown foliage of Africa. The smoke and dinginess of Birmingham was still another picture that stuck in John's mind for the rest of his life. One item that had a lasting impression on John was the cutting down of a large willow tree near the mill. The trunk lay abandoned on the side of the road for months, a picture that stuck with Tolkien and emerged to show the devastation of the Shire at the end of his trilogy.

One of the local farmers, called the 'black ogre' by the boys, chased them out of his fields when they were searching for mushrooms. The miller, covered in white flour, was always referred to as the 'white ogre.' Even then, John's imagination was working overtime! His favorite book was "The Blue Book of Fairy Tales," with the dragons contained in it. The people and landscapes from this time in his life became the backdrop for his novels.

The copyright of the article John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) in Famous Childhoods is owned by Mary Lou Derksen. Permission to republish John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.