A newly discovered primary account of Arthur Tolkien’s death

Bloemfontein was a rough place to be on the late 19th century. In addition to the Boer Wars, the climate was a difficult adjustment for Europeans, and disease was rampant. The infant J.R.R. Tolkien and his mother were both ill-stuited to South Africa and often sick, hence, they had returned to England rather than stay on. On October 12, 1899, the bishop of the Anglican Diocese of the Free State, known then as the Diocese of Bloemfontein, Wale Hicks died in office, leaving the bishopric sede vacante until the appointment of Arthur Chandler in 1902.

Before his own death, Bishop Hicks commented on at least three other notable British deaths among his flock in Bloemfontein. First, Alfred Bracebridge Stanford, Vicar of Mafeking (now called Mahikeng), of dysentery late in 1895. Then:

We have had two further losses since. William Walter Powell, a master in St. Andrew’s College, and a candidate for Holy Orders, a young man of considerable promise, died of typhoid fever on January 10. He was a licensed reader, and had given his spare time and energy to helping in church work in various ways with a very simple and unaffected devotion. [1]

And then, he goes on to relate the death of J.R.R. Tolkien’s father:

And now on the 15th inst. [instante mense, i.e., of the current month, i.e., when the bishrop was writing this piece in February, 1896] we have lost one of our good, devoted business men, Arthur Tolkien, who was treasurer of our Diocesan Finance Board. I had hoped to propose him as a member of the Society (S.P.G.) before now. [2]

Arthur Tolkien died of severe bleeding and rheumatic fever, according to an obituary reprinted in The Tolkien Family Album [3]. We get here a picture of Arthur actively involved in church activities and in the promulgation of Christianity to distant parts of the globe, in a church of the Anglican denomination. Scull and Hammond note in their Chronology that Arthur was buried in an Anglican cemetery [4]. Indeed, it seems that Arthur and his new bride Mabel were in fact Anglican, however much we associate J.R.R. Tolkien with his profound Catholic faith. After Arthur’s death and Mabel’s permanent return to England with her two sons, she and her sister converted to Roman Catholicism in June 1900, a conversion which apparently infuriated both the Tolkiens, referred to as Baptists, and the Suffields, who were Methodist/Unitarian. [5] Arthur was also the treasurer of the Diocesan Finance Board, just as he had been treasurer for the Old Edwardians Club, as I have previously documented.

[1] “Varied Needs in Bloemfontein Diocese: A General Review of the Work by the Bishop.” The Mission Field: A Monthly Record of the Proceedings of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at Home and Abroad. Volume XLI (1896). May 1, 1896. G. Bell & Sons, p. 180.

[2] loc. cit. By S.P.G., Hicks is referring to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, a missionary organization founded in 1701 by royal charter of King William III, and the publisher of the mission field notes being quoted here.

[3] Tolkien, John and Priscilla. The Tolkien Family Album. Houghton Mifflin, 1992, p. 19. Other accounts disagree and say it was typhoid fever; see Chronology, p. 818.

[4] Scull, Christina and Wayne G. Hammond. The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Chronology. Rev. and exp. ed. HarperCollins, 2017, p. 5.

[5] Priestman, Judith, ed. Tolkien: Life and Legend. Bodleian Library, Oxford. 1992, p. 12.