Tolkien, J.R.R.

The English author, poet and philologist John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, then in the Orange Free State (now Free State Province) in South Africa where his father was a bank manager. In 1895, his mother, Mabel, took her two children – Ronald and his two years younger brother Hilary – for an extended visit to England. Their father was expected to follow later, but he fell ill and died of rheumatic fever the following year. His widow and sons first lived with her parents in the village of King’s Heath near Birmingham, and later that year they moved to Sarehole in Worcestershire. In 1900, Mabel Tolkien rebelled against her family by converting to the Catholic faith; four years later she died of diabetes. Shortly before her death, she appointed her friend Father Francis Xavier Morgan to be her sons’ guardian. He became an influential figure in their lives, and Tolkien remained a devout Catholic until he died.