John Tolkien (priest)

John Francis Reuel Tolkien (16 November 1917 – 22 January 2003) was an English Roman-Catholic priest and the eldest son of J. R. R. Tolkien. He served as a parish priest in Oxford, Coventry, Birmingham, and Stoke-on-Trent. He was also a chaplain at the University College of North Staffordshire and to two schools, as well as a governor of St Joseph's College. During his lifetime and after his death, there were a number of allegations of child sexual abuse against him: he was questioned by the police but never charged or convicted. John Francis Reuel Tolkien was born in Cheltenham on 16 November 1917 to J. R. R. Tolkien and Edith Tolkien. His middle name "Francis" was in honour of Father Francis Xavier Morgan who had baptised him. He received his formal education at the Dragon School, Oxford and The Oratory School in Caversham, Berkshire where he decided to become a priest during his final year. Acting on the advice of the Archbishop he decided to study English at Exeter College, Oxford from where he received his B.A. degree in 1939. In November 1939, he went to the English College, Rome. Due to the outbreak of World War II, the college was moved to Stonyhurst in Lancashire. He also studied Old Norse from his father in Oxford. In 2019, The Observer reported that a tape-recorded conversation allegedly with John Francis Reuel Tolkien was heard by one of its journalists, in which "a man said to be him is heard discussing his childhood during the 1920s" and stated that he was a victim of sexual abuse by at least one of his father's colleagues as a child. He was ordained as a priest at St Gregory and Augustine Church in North Oxford. He first served as a curate from 1946 to 1950 at the St Mary and St Benedict Church in Coventry, teaching 60 children every week and organising efforts for rebuilding the church's schools. From 1950 to 1957, he was a curate at the English Martyrs Church in Sparkhill, Birmingham.