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

4 January 1914Rob Gilson writes to Tolkien, sending congratulations on his engagement. G.B. Smith has asked him to attend a T.C.B.S. meeting next week, and Gilson hopes that Tolkien will be there too (in the event, he does not attend).

Later in 1914Tolkien visits Cromer in Norfolk, a seaside resort on the north-east coast of England. The occasion will later inspire a poem, The Lonely Harebell (see entry for 10 November–1 December 1916).

6 January 1914Tolkien apparently decides that the new sketchbook he began the previous summer should be devoted henceforth to imaginative subjects. Probably at this time he tears out the three topographical drawings he had already made in it and writes on its cover: * The Book of Ishness . He inserts (now or later) an undated drawing, Ei uchnem: Russian Boatmen’s Song , a stylized view of a boat on a river. This is followed in the book by a sketch of a fantastic house in an apparently northern landscape (‘Northern House’, Artist and Illustrator , fig. 38), dated ‘Jan[uary] 6 1914’. This is followed in the book by three undated works, An Osity or Balliol College Unmasked, Eeriness ( Artist and Illustrator , fig. 40), and Childhood Memories of My Grandmother’s House .

8 January 1914Tolkien is in Warwick at the end of Christmas vacation. Today, the anniversary of their reunion, Edith is received into the Catholic Church, and she and Tolkien are formally betrothed in the church at Warwick by Father Murphy. To celebrate the occasion, probably on this date but certainly during January, Tolkien writes a poem, Magna Dei Gloria (Warwick) dedicated ‘To EMB’ (Edith Mary Bratt).

12 January 1914Tolkien paints another watercolour, Beyond ( Artist and Illustrator , fig. 39) in The Book of Ishness , and probably also the closely related drawings that follow, There and Here .

18 January 1914Hilary Full Term begins.

Hilary Term 1914Kenneth Sisam continues to teach the Anglo-Saxon Reader (Prose), Elementary Historical Grammar, Havelok , and the Anglo-Saxon Reader (Verse). Tolkien almost certainly attends Sisam’s two new classes, Beowulf on Wednesdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 21 January, and The Pearl on Saturdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 24 January. He probably also attends A.S. Napier’s continuation of his lectures on English Historical Grammar, on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 23 January; on Morris and Skeat’s Specimens , on Thursdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools; and on Old English Dialects, on Saturdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 24 January. Tolkien also attends this year (or, less probably, in 1915) W.A. Craigie’s lectures on Hrafnkel’s Saga on Thursdays at 5.00 p.m. in the Taylor Institution, beginning 22 January, and probably Craigie’s continuation of his lectures on Old Icelandic Grammar on Tuesdays at 5.00 p.m. in the Taylor Institution, beginning 20 January. He possibly attends as well lectures by Sir John Rhys on Welsh: The Mabinogion on Tuesdays and Fridays at 6.00 p.m. at Jesus College, beginning 23 January, and by *E.E. Wardale on the Literature of the Old English Period on Mondays at 11.00 a.m. in the Old Ashmolean, beginning 26 January. – Tolkien and Colin Cullis, President and Secretary of the Stapeldon Society for Hilary Term, examine the Society’s rules before they are reprinted. Cullis writes two pages of possible amendments, which they both sign. Tolkien uses the versos of these sheets to make a list of unusual English words, with a note to look them up in the * Oxford English Dictionary . – During this term, Tolkien is also a member of a committee to draw up a new constitution for the Exeter College Essay Club; he signs the new rules in January 1914. He is Secretary of the Club for Hilary Term, but no minutes survive until those for the meeting of 4 March. – Probably during this term, Tolkien plays a football match with the Exeter College Rugby XV versus the Boat Club. See note .

26 January 1914Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. The new Secretary records that ‘the memory and imagination of the House was stirred by the cinematographically vivid minutes of the last meeting’, written by Tolkien as the previous Secretary (Exeter College archives).

30 January 1914The Sub-Rector signs a note giving Tolkien and Colin Cullis leave ‘to have supper for nine on Sat. nights in the rooms of one or the other this term’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). Tolkien will later write on this note: ‘Germ of the Chequers’, i.e. the beginning of the Chequers Clubbe (*Societies and clubs). The only recorded meeting of this club is on 18 June 1914, but it may be supposed that Tolkien and Cullis host at least some dinners during Hilary Term. Many of the members who will sign Tolkien’s menu on 18 June were also members of the Apolausticks, which suggests that the Chequers Clubbe was a successor to that group.

Early February 1914Christopher Wiseman and T.K. Barnsley form a delegation from Cambridge to the Oxford Wesley Society; Rob Gilson accompanies them. They have ‘a splendid weekend…. I saw lots of [his Birmingham friend Frederick] Scopes and Tolkien and G.B. Smith, all of whom seem very contented with life’ (Gilson, letter to Marianne Cary Gilson, 17 February 1914, quoted in John Garth, Tolkien and the Great War (2003), p. 32).

2 February 1914Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society, though he is suffering from ‘gastric influenza’ contracted the previous evening.

9 February 1914Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. A committee is elected, consisting of the President of the Junior Common Room, the President of the Stapeldon Society (Tolkien), and R.H. Gordon, to consider the question of a College Dinner in Trinity Term as part of celebrations marking the sexcentenary of the founding of Exeter College.

16 February 1914Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. His eagle eye or keen sense of smell detecting the presence of a glass of intoxicating liquor, he orders its immediate removal. The members later debate the motion: ‘Flirting is a reprehensible past-time’. The votes at the end being equal, Tolkien as President casts the deciding vote in favour of the motion.

23 February 1914Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. Someone having upset a bath in the room above, Tolkien is reported to have remarked: ‘Zeus thunders on the right’ (Exeter College archives).

2 March 1914Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. In a debate he speaks in favour of the motion: ‘The cheap cinema is an engine of social corruption’. The motion fails, 9 votes to 10.

4 March 1914At a meeting of the Exeter College Essay Club in the rooms of E.W. Marshall, Tolkien is elected President of the Club for Trinity Term. He reads a paper on Francis Thompson which begins with biographical details, then justifies Tolkien’s opinion that Thompson should be ranked among the very greatest of poets. Supporting his views with many quotations, he praises Thompson’s metrical power, the greatness of his language, and the immensity of his imagery and its underlying faith.

9 March 1914Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. He replies as departing President to a vote of thanks to officers at the end of their term of office. He remains however on the Sexcentenary Dinner committee.