Literary Warwickshire JRR Tolkien
Above are pictures of the church In Warwick where Tolkien married Edith Bratt (see marriage certificate).
Left is Edith’s house in Victoria Street, Warwick.
Left is Edith’s house in Victoria Street, Warwick.
TOLKIEN grew up in and around Birmingham, then part of Warwickshire, so it is tempting to think that Middle Earth is loosely the English Midlands and that the Shire is Warwickshire. The hobbit name of Underhill used as disguise by Frodo may have been borrowed from a Warwickshire family of that name - one branch lived at the village of Baginton (which itself sounds like a combination of Baggins and Hobbiton!)
An article in the Times Literary Supplement in 2005 suggested that both the cities Edoras and Minas Tirith in the Lord of the Rings books are based on Warwick.
Tolkien was married in Warwick on 22 March 1916 at St Mary Immaculate Church to Edith Bratt, who had been living in the town for three years while Tolkien completed
his studies at Oxford, 40 miles away. Edith had been taking Catholic instruction from Father Murphy while living in Victoria Street with her cousin, Jenni Grove.
Tolkien and his wife were both orphans. The young JRR and his brother were cared for first by an aunt in Birmingham, then by a family called the Faulkners. Edith was already part of the Faulkner household. After it was discovered that the teenagers were attracted to each other, Edith was sent to stay with friends in Cheltenham and Tolkien was barred from contacting her until he was 21.
On his 21st birthday, Tolkien wrote to Edith proposing marriage. Learning she was engaged to someone else, he set off from Oxford to persuade her otherwise. Not only did Edith agree to marry him, she also promised to become a Catholic, enraging the friends she was living with, so she left them and settled in Warwick.
Here Edith practised the piano and gave recitals, as well as receiving Catholic instruction, while Tolkien completed his degree. She was received into the church in January 1914, and a few weeks later the couple were officially betrothed by Father Murphy. After their wedding two years later, they left Warwick and moved to Stafford where Tolkien, called up to fight in France, completed his army training.
