Geography (2) - J.R.R Tolkien

About J.R.R Tolkien:

J.R.R Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 1892. At the age of three he, along with his mother and younger brother, returned to England. Shortly afterwards, Tolkien’s father died in South Africa, so the rest of the family remained in England.

Tolkien went on to study in Exeter Collage, Oxford where he received first class honours in his English degree.

At the age of sixteen he met Edith Mary Bratt, and fell in love with her. But their relationship was not approved of by her parents due to the fact that Tolkien was Catholic and Edith’s family were Protestant. As a result, Edith was sent to a country house and forbidden to see Tolkien. They became reacquainted in later years and were married just before Tolkien was sent off to fight in World War I.  

He fought at the Battle of the Somme during the First World War and his experiences of the war strongly influenced his writing. His works were also influenced by European mythology and legends and his strong Christian faith.

His most famous works include "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Silmarillion". These are all set in the fantasy world of Middle Earth and centre around the story of the One Ring. In "The Silmarillion", Tolkien tells the story of the creation of Middle Earth and how the Dark Lord Sauron forged the One Ring as a way of binding all the other races of Middle Earth to his will. "The Hobbit" is the story of a hobbit called Bilbo and his journey to the Lonely Mountain with a group of dwarves and how he discovers the ring along the way. "The Lord of the Rings" then focuses on his nephew, Frodo, and his quest to destroy the ring in the mountain of fire.

Bloemfontein and The Orange Free State:

At the time Bloemfontein was the capital of the Orange Free State. This was an independent Boer republic that had been settled by the Dutch. 

The Orange Free State was at the time a popular mining area for diamonds. Diamonds need specific conditions to form and these are only met in the mantle and at meteoric crater sites. There is a large meteor crater near the town of Vredefort, which used to be part of the Orange Free State. For this reason the area was very rich in diamonds in the late 1800s.