J.R.R. Tolkien and the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum

A newly discovered document has shed light on J.R.R Tolkien in Staffordshire – The Council of Lichfield 1915

On September 25th 1915 The George Hotel in Lichfield saw the final meeting of the T.C.B.S. – ‘The Council of Lichfield.’ T.C.B.S. is an acronym for Tea Club, Barrovian Society. Tolkien and his friends at King Edward’s School once met regularly at the Barrow Stores in Birmingham, a department store with café on the corner of Bull Street and Corporation Street, which is where the T.C.B.S. got their name.

The core members were considered to be the ‘big four’ of Tolkien, known as John Ronald to his friends, Geoffrey Bache Smith, Christopher Wiseman, and Robert Gilson.

The friends had stayed in contact with each other since leaving King Edward’s School, regularly corresponding about one another’s literary work and this continued during their military service – Smith, Gilson and Tolkien in the Army and Wiseman in the Royal Navy. Smith and Gilson died during the war, so too did junior T.C.B.S members including Thomas ‘Tea Cake’ Barnsley and Ralph Payton. Of Tolkien’s close personal friends, only Christopher Wiseman survived the war, a fact which affected him for the rest of his life and informed his writing.

“One has personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead.” – J.R.R Tolkien from his Foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings.

This fascinating document has been discovered by The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum. It is the Museum’s visitor book from September 1915. It shows the signatures of Robert Gilson and Geoffrey Smith. They had apparently visited the museum while waiting for JRR to meet them for their ‘Council of Lichfield’.

Read John Garth’s fitting tribute to the last meeting of the TCBS of JRR Tolkien, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Smith and Christopher Wiseman at the Council of Lichfield.

Discover more about J.R.R. Tolkien in Staffordshire at Penkridge Library where you can explore the J.R.R. Tolkien Collection.