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

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      Late June 1904 Mabel has recovered sufficiently to leave hospital and must now undergo a lengthy convalescence. Father Francis Morgan arranges for her and the boys to stay at Woodside Cottage, *Rednal, Worcestershire, near the Oratory retreat and cemetery. They lodge with the local postman and his wife, Mr and Mrs Till. They have the freedom of the Oratory’s grounds and can explore the adjoining Lickey Hills. Mabel writes to her mother-in-law: ‘Boys look ridiculously well compared to the weak white ghosts that met me on train 4 weeks ago!!! Hilary has got tweed suit and his first Etons today! and looks immense. – We’ve had perfect weather. Boys will write first wet day but what with Bilberry-gathering – Tea in Hay – Kite-flying with Fr. Francis – sketching – Tree Climbing – they’ve never enjoyed a holiday so much’ (quoted in Biography, pp. 29–30.). Father Francis visits many times. Mabel and the boys attend Mass on Sundays at the Oratory retreat, if a priest is in residence, or they are driven to St Peter’s Catholic church in nearby Bromsgrove with Mr and Mrs Church, the gardener and caretaker for the Oratory fathers.

      8 August 1904 Ronald writes a three-page pictorial code letter to Father Francis, which ends in plain text with a limerick about the priest ‘to pay you out for not coming!’

      September 1904 Even when autumn term begins at King Edward’s School, Mabel decides not to leave Woodside Cottage. Therefore Ronald has to rise early and walk over a mile from Rednal to the nearest station to catch a train into Birmingham; by the time he comes home at the end of the day it is growing dark, and Hilary sometimes meets him with a lamp.

      Autumn term 1904 Ronald continues in Class VI under George Brewerton, and in Section B6.

      8 November 1904 Mabel sinks into a diabetic coma.

      14 November 1904 Mabel Tolkien dies in Woodside Cottage, with Father Francis Morgan and May Incledon at her bedside.

      17 November 1904 Mabel Tolkien is buried in the churchyard of St Peter’s, Bromsgrove, and her grave marked with a cross of the same design as that used for the graves of the Oratory fathers. In her will she has appointed Father Francis as Ronald and Hilary’s guardian. The net value of her estate is £1,261 16s 10d.

      December 1904 In the School class list of this date, Ronald is listed eleventh out of fifteen in the Sixth Class at King Edward’s School.

      Late 1904 Since Ronald and Hilary cannot live with him in the Oratory, Father Francis has to find them suitable lodgings, but he knows that both the Suffield and the Tolkien families had opposed Mabel’s conversion and might contest her will to gain control of the boys. King Edward’s School records list Ronald’s address, immediately following his mother’s death, as care of Laurence Tolkien (one of Arthur’s brothers, an insurance manager) at Dunkeld, Middleton Hall Road, Kings Norton. By January 1905, however, Father Francis will arrange for Ronald and Hilary to live with Beatrice Suffield, the widow of Mabel’s youngest brother, William. This seems a good compromise, as Aunt Beatrice has no strong religious views, she is family, and she lives near the Oratory at 25 Stirling Road in Edgbaston. The boys are given a large room at the top of her house from which they have a view of the countryside in the distance. – During school holidays Ronald and Hilary often stay with other relatives. Among these are two of their father’s sisters (see *Tolkien family), Aunt Grace who lives in Newcastle with her husband William Mountain and their children Kenneth and Dorothy, and Aunt Mabel who lives at Abbotsford, 69 Wake Green Road, Moseley, Birmingham with her husband Tom Mitton and their children (*Mitton family). But most often they stay with the Incledons, who now live at *Barnt Green, Worcestershire, near Rednal. (A second daughter, Friede Mary, had been born to May and Walter Incledon in 1895.) On one of his early visits to the Incledons Ronald discovers that Marjorie and Mary Incledon have constructed a language, ‘Animalic’, almost entirely out of English animal, bird, and fish names, and are able to converse in it fluently. He learns a little of Animalic and is amused by it. He does not admit to his cousins that he himself had already indulged a ‘secret vice’ of creating languages: he will later remark that he had been making up imaginary languages since he could write (see *Languages, Invented).

1905

      1905 Aunt Beatrice gives the boys board and lodging but little affection or consideration for their feelings; one day Ronald discovers that she has burned their mother’s personal papers and letters. In many ways, the Oratory is Ronald and Hilary’s real home. In the morning, they serve Mass for Father Francis, and they eat breakfast in the refectory before leaving for school, either on foot or by horse-bus or bicycle. Ronald will later describe this period in his life as having ‘the advantage of a (then) first rate school and that of a “good Catholic home” – “in excelsis”: [I was] virtually a junior inmate of the Oratory house, which contained many learned fathers (largely “converts”)’ (letter to *Michael Tolkien, begun after 25 August 1967, Letters, p. 395). – Having access to books in Spanish belonging to Father Francis Morgan (who is half Spanish), Ronald tries to teach himself that language.

      Spring and summer terms 1905 With the permission of the Oratory, for otherwise they would have to go to St Philip’s, Ronald continues to attend King Edward’s School, now together with Hilary, who enters in January 1905 in Class XIII, Section D7. Ronald is still in the Sixth Class under George Brewerton, in Section B6. He is also now in the Third Division (b) of the French course taught by Assistant Master A.L. Rothe. Father Francis will also allow Ronald to attend classes on the New Testament in Greek, offered by the Head Master of King Edward’s School, *Robert Cary Gilson.

      6 and 8 July 1905 Athletic Sports are held at the King Edward’s School Grounds.

      August 1905 Jane Suffield and Edwin Neave are married in Manchester. They settle in *Gedling, near Nottingham, where Edwin now holds a more senior position with Guardian Assurance.

      2 August 1905 Speech Day and prize-giving at King Edward’s School. Ronald, who has tied for first place among fifteen boys in the Sixth Class, receives as a prize the book Roman History by W.W. Capes (1879).

      Summer 1905 According to Humphrey Carpenter, Father Francis Morgan took Ronald and Hilary on holiday to *Lyme Regis, on the south coast of England, every summer after their mother’s death; and ‘later in childhood’ Ronald went on a railway journey to *Wales (Biography, p. 26).

      Autumn term 1905 Ronald is now in the Fifth Class at King Edward’s School, under Assistant Master C.H. Heath. There he meets Christopher Wiseman, who will become a close friend and friendly rival. At the end of term Ronald is placed first and Wiseman second in the class of nineteen boys. Other pupils who also will become close friends are *Robert Q. ‘Rob’ Gilson, the son of the Head Master, and *Vincent Trought. During this term Ronald is in Section B5 for Mathematics and Arithmetic under Assistant Master Charles Davison, and in the French Third Division (a) under Assistant Master J.W. Smyth. Hilary Tolkien continues in Class XIII, Section D7.

1906

      c. 1906–1907 On a later visit to his Incledon cousins, Ronald discovers that Marjorie has lost interest in Animalic. He and Mary begin to create a new, more sophisticated language, ‘Nevbosh’ or ‘New Nonsense’.

      Spring and summer terms 1906 Ronald enters the Fourth Class under *R.W. Reynolds. He thinks that Reynolds makes Greek and Roman history boring, but likes him as a person. Ronald is in Section B4 for Mathematics and Arithmetic, in which he will be ranked second, and in the French СКАЧАТЬ