Edith Mary Tolkien ( Bratt; 21 January 1889 – 29 November 1971) was an Englishwoman known as the wife of the novelist J. R. R. Tolkien. She was the inspiration for his fictional Middle-earth characters Lúthien Tinúviel and Arwen Undómiel.
Biography
Early life
Edith Bratt was born in Gloucester on 21 January 1889. Her mother, Frances Bratt, was 30 years old, unmarried, and was the daughter of a local shoe and bootmaker.
According to Humphrey Carpenter, Frances Bratt never married, and the name of Edith's father is not listed on her birth certificate. Even so, Frances is reported to have always preserved a photograph of him and his name was known within the Bratt family. Edith, however, was always deeply conscious of having been conceived out of wedlock and never told her own children the name of their grandfather. Subsequent research has identified Edith's father as Birmingham paper dealer Alfred Frederick Warrilow, who had previously employed Frances Bratt as governess to his daughter, Nellie Warrilow. When Warrilow died in 1891, he named Frances as his sole executrix in his will.
Edith was brought up in Handsworth, a suburb of Birmingham, by her mother and also her cousin, Jenny Grove (related to Sir George Grove). According to Humphrey Carpenter, the circumstances of Edith's birth were a regular subject of neighbourhood gossip.
Frances Bratt died when her daughter was 14 and Edith was sent to the Dresden House boarding school in Evesham. The school was run by the Watts sisters, who had studied music in Dresden. Although the school had a very "strict regime", Edith was always to remember it fondly. It was at the Dresden House School where Edith "first developed her great love, and talent, for playing the piano."
Following school, Edith was expected to become a concert pianist or at the very least a piano teacher. While she considered how to proceed, Edith's guardian, solicitor Stephen Gateley, found her rooms at Mrs. Faulkner's boarding house at 37 Duchess Road, Birmingham.
Courtship
The boarding house at 37 Duchess Road "was a gloomy, creeper-covered house, hung with dingy lace curtains". It was owned and operated by Mrs. Faulkner, whose husband Louis was "a wine merchant with a taste for his own wares". Mrs. Faulkner was also a Roman Catholic and "an active member" of the parish attached to the nearby Birmingham Oratory.
Mrs. Faulkner hosted musical soirées which were often attended by the Oratory's priests. She was delighted to have, in Edith, a pianist to accompany the soloists. Whenever Edith attempted to practise, however, Mrs. Faulkner "would sweep into the room as soon as the scales and arpeggios began", and say, "Now, Edith dear, enough for now!"
In later years, Edith told her children that her life at 37 Duchess Road was "rather restricted". Once, Edith, who "had a lifelong enjoyment of the theatre", announced that she was going to a matinée at the Theatre Royal. In response, Mrs. Faulkner told her that, "she must take a book to read in the interval to avoid the risk of being talked to by strangers!"
Edith first met Tolkien early in 1908, when he and his younger brother Hilary were moved into 37 Duchess Road by their guardian, Fr. Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory. At the time Tolkien, known within his family as Ronald, was 16 years old and Edith was 19. According to Humphrey Carpenter, Edith and Ronald took to frequenting Birmingham teashops, especially one which had a balcony overlooking the pavement. There they would sit and throw sugarlumps into the hats of passers-by, moving to the next table when the sugar bowl was empty. ...With two people of their personalities and in their position, romance was bound to flourish. Both were orphans in need of affection, and they found that they could give it to each other. During the summer of 1909, they decided that they were in love.
However, before the end of the year the relationship had become known to Tolkien's guardian. Viewing Edith as a distraction from Tolkien's schoolwork and bothered by her Anglican religion, he forbade any contact between them until Tolkien became a legal adult at 21.
Tolkien grudgingly obeyed this instruction to the letter while Father Morgan's guardianship lasted. Edith's legal guardian, solicitor Stephen Gately, arranged for her to move to Cheltenham to stay with a family friend, solicitor C. H. Jessop and his wife.
Edith lived in relative comfort in the Jessop's spacious house and was waited upon by servants. Unlike at Mrs. Faulkner's house, she could play to her content upon the Jessop's grand piano.