Blue Plaque unveiled

A blue plaque was unveiled for JRR Tolkien in Leeds.

A blue plaque to JRR Tolkien has been established by Leeds Civic Trust at 2 Darnley Road, West Park, Leeds. Dr Kersten Hall, graduate of St Anne's College, Oxford and Visiting Fellow to the Faculty of Arts at the University of Leeds, unveiled the plaque on 1st October 2012. The Tolkien Society and its members have been instrumental in securing this recognition for a former residence of JRR Tolkien, and his time at the University of Leeds in the 1920s.

Ian Spittlehouse, Trustee and the Tolkien Society's liaison with the representatives of West Park and the Leeds Civic Trust said, "This is a timely recognition of Tolkien's tenure in Leeds, and a welcome reminder of Yorkshire's influence on his academic and literary career."

Tolkien's time in Leeds prefaced his long academic career at Oxford and the publication of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. During this time he was developing the story-teller's art. He began writing The Father Christmas Letters for his son John in 1920. In 1925 he composed a story for his second son, Michael, to explain the loss of a toy dog on the beach at Filey. This was eventually edited and published in 1998 as Roverandum.