The day Tolkien became a WW2 air raid warden

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The day Tolkien enrolled as a Second World War air raid warden has been revealed in a previously unseen image from Oxford’s city archives.

It was on Monday 29 September 1941 – much later than has been suggested.

Humphrey Carpenter’s biography and the Tolkien Family Album alike says simply that he enrolled during the 1939–45 war. In their Chronology, Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond say it was ‘by January 1941, and probably during 1940’. But I suspect this is an oversight.

The only previous published evidence is in Tolkien’s pocket diary entry for 15 January 1942:

‘Chief Warden’s Talk, St. Eds, 20.00’¹

So now we know from the Museum of Oxford website (Opens in a new window) when Tolkien enrolled as an air raid warden, we can begin to ask why.