July 1919 Colin Cullis dies of pneumonia as a consequence of the influenza pandemic.
8 July 1919 The War Office informs Tolkien that his release from military service has been approved. He is to call at the Dispersal Unit at Fovant, near Salisbury in Wiltshire, on 15 July; his Army pay will cease on 16 July. The district OUTC office of the Ministry of Labour will issue him a Railway Warrant for the journey.
15 July 1919 Tolkien travels to Fovant to receive documents officially discharging him from military service, though he is still obliged to return to duty in the event of an emergency. His demobilization papers include a Protection Certificate (Officer) which states that he is released with effect 16 July; that he has the rank of Temporary Lieutenant; that the last unit in which he served was OUTC Oxford; that his Medical Category is C(i); that his occupation in civilian life is ‘tutor’; and that his permanent address is ‘Exeter College, Oxford’. He is also given a Demobilization Ration Book, valid for a fortnight, after which he will need a civilian ration book. (See also entry for 3 November 1920.)
19 July 1919 Britain celebrates peace with victory parades.
4 September 1919 The Ministry of Pensions writes to Tolkien that in respect of his disability he has been awarded temporary retired pay at the rate of £35 a year from 16 July 1919 to 6 December 1919, and encloses a form for Tolkien to send to the Paymaster General. If his disability continues at the end of the period he can request a medical examination for further consideration of his case.
17 September 1919 Tolkien’s combined income from the Oxford English Dictionary and from tutoring allows him to rent a small house at 1 Alfred Street (now called Pusey Street); the family moves on this date. Edith is able to bring her piano out of storage. The Tolkiens can also afford to engage a cook-housemaid to help Edith.
?Late summer 1919–?September 1920 Tolkien begins to write, or writes the earliest version of, *Light as Leaf on Lindentree, an expression in verse of the story of Beren and Lúthien. He will note on a later version that the poem had its ‘first beginnings’ in 1919–20 at his home in Alfred Street.
12 October 1919 Michaelmas Full Term begins.
Michaelmas Term 1919 Tolkien holds the office of Critic to the Exeter College Essay Club.
30 October 1919 Tolkien receives his Master of Arts degree at Oxford in a Congregation.
?November 1919 Tolkien begins to keep a notebook in which he records his two-year-old son’s pronunciation and use of words. He will later do the same for his second son, Michael.
11 November 1919 The Ministry of Pensions writes to Tolkien, who seems to have informed the authorities that he is still suffering some disability. The Ministry directs him to enter a hostel or colony for treatment and training, and also raises his retired Army pay to the maximum disabled rate, though he will be expected to use part of this to cover the costs of care. In the event, Tolkien seems not to have followed this directive, but used the verso of the letter to write part of a new poem, The Ruined Enchanter: A Fairy Ballad.
12 November 1919 In the evening, Tolkien attends a meeting of the Exeter College Essay Club at which C.H.B. Kitchin reads a paper, World Progress and English Literature. As Critic, Tolkien opens the discussion, touching upon the obsession with antiquity in art and ascribing the lure of the past to its familiarity. But he holds that the ‘widening of modern knowledge of the universe & consequent opening up of new fields of ideas, should more than compensate for any blunting of our capacity for imaginative appreciation of certain aspects of nature, as compared with the ancients’ (Exeter College archives).
26 November 1919 In the evening, Tolkien attends a meeting of the Exeter College Essay Club at which E.C. Dickinson reads a paper, The Aesthetic Value of the Ballad. As Critic, Tolkien opens the discussion, touching on the origin of the ballad, and maintains that because of a different origin, the so-called modern ballad is not really a ballad at all.
6 December 1919 Michaelmas Full Term ends.
Winter 1919 Tolkien will later write in his diary that this winter ‘found me still pegging away at tutoring in Oxford, still with the glossary [to Fourteenth Century Verse & Prose] hanging over me’ (quoted by Christopher Tolkien in private correspondence).
1920s (by June 1927) Tolkien writes four poems inspired by medieval bestiaries: *Fastitocalon, Iumbo, or ye Kinde of ye Oliphaunt (*Oliphaunt), Monoceros, the Unicorn, and Reginhardus, the Fox.
1920s or 1930s Tolkien writes a poem, Vestr um haf (Old Norse ‘west over sea’). Much later, he will revise it as *Bilbo’s Last Song (at the Grey Havens).
c. 1920–c. 1924 On one or more occasions during this period Tolkien revises the first section of the Eärendel poem he had written in ?late 1914. In the latest text he gives it the title The Bidding of the Minstrel, from the Lay of Eärendel.
18 January 1920 Hilary Full Term begins.
10 March 1920 In the evening, Tolkien attends a meeting of the Exeter College Essay Club and reads a shortened version of The Fall of Gondolin. Present in the audience are *Nevill Coghill (see note) and *H.V.D. ‘Hugo’ Dyson, who will become friends and fellow members of the *Inklings. Tolkien has worked hard on an introduction: his notes have many deletions and hesitations. In one deleted passage he mentions that his ‘cycle’ (mythology) concerns ‘the coming of the mariner Eriol to the Lonely Island’. He declares that
the conventional apology of readers for their papers was never more due to the Club than tonight; but I must plead circumstances and a Secretary too strong for me. Circumstances have prevented me writing a critical paper; and the Secretary who had somehow entrapped me into ‘reading something’ this term, would not release me from my promise. Therefore I must read something already written, and in desperation I have fallen back on this Tale. It has, of course, never seen the light before but it was not written maliciously for your annoyance but in past days for my own amusement. A complete cycle of events in an Elfinesse of my own imagining has for some time past grown up (rather than been constructed) in my mind. Some of the episodes have been scribbled down (at great length – a length due to their interest for myself which can hardly be shared). This tale is not the best of them but it is the only one that has so far been revised at all and insufficient as that revision has been, I dare read aloud. It will take a longish time – please depart when you want to: perhaps (I may console myself by reflecting) too long for anyone to be left to tear me to pieces at the end. I have not the time or cheek to give a resume of the cycle so that you must please bear with the incidental allusions to other tales. [courtesy of, and corrected by, Christopher Tolkien; cf. Unfinished Tales, p. 5]
But the members of the Essay Club enjoy the reading. The Club Secretary will record in the minutes:
As a discovery of a new mythological background Mr Tolkein’s [sic] matter was exceedingly illuminating and marked him out as a staunch follower of tradition, a treatment indeed in the manner of such typical Romantics as William Morris, George Macdonald, de la Motte-Fouquet [sic, for Fouqué] etc. We gathered likewise that the reader’s acquaintanceship with Scandinavian saga and legend was not a little…. The battle of the contending forces of good and evil as represented by the Gongothlim [i.e. Gondothlim] and the followers of Melco [i.e. Melko] was very graphically and astonishingly told, combined with a wealth of attendance to detail interesting in extreme. At the conclusion as the hour had grown very late the president moved the omission of discussion, and the society adjourned after the customary