Farmer Giles Of

In search of The Shire The Lost Heart of the Little Kingdom

Alex Lewis

oncerning Farmer Giles of William Morris (later Lord Nuffield) First published in ‘Leaves from the Ham1, Tolkien’s biographer and his production-line car manu Humphrey Carpenter stated tree, JR R Tolkien’s Shorter facture brought British-built cars C Fiction’ 1991, the Proceedings of the that Tolkien wrote it some time dur within the reach of millions. The ing the 1930s in part to amuse his 4th Tolkien Society Workshop, Cowley works in Eastern Oxford children but chiefly to please him Beverley 1989. were established in 1910 but it was self.2 The Little Kingdom is A Peter Roe booklet. well after 1918 that car production Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. really expanded. In 1919 Morris Worminghall (meaning 'dragon- level, Farmer Giles of Ham could Motors employed only two hundred hall') is a place a few miles East of easily be seen as an allegory of workers. By 1924, this figure had Oxford. Early in 1938 he read a Tolkien's switch from academicism risen to 5,500. With the incorpora revised version at Worcester to creativity.5 Shippey points out tion of the Pressed Steel car-body College and It went down well, but that the allegory of the short tale Is making factory in Cowley, and Carpenter states that by 1945 very precise, with the Parson being Osberton Radiators in the North of Tolkien could not write the sequel perhaps the idealised philologist, Oxford, in 1926, 6,500 people since Oxfordshire had changed so the blade Tailbiter and the rope worked for the Oxford motor car much. which the Farmer used standing for industry. It is estimated that by the It Is perhaps strange for those philological science, Giles the cre Second World War thirty per cent of not acquainted with the area con ative instinct, the dragon represent the population of Oxford worked for cerned to think that as early as ing the ancient world of Northern the motor industry, and Morris had 1945 Tolkien bemoaned the passing imagination, and the king standing built his millionth car.6 This man of the Oxfordshire and Midlands for literary criticism that takes no power was satisfied by Immigrant countryside, and that he might have account of historical language labour drawn to the city by the given this as his main reason for not study. Shippey reveals to us that prospect of work In this ever- writing anything more concerning Tolkien illustrated with Farmer Giles expanding industry. The rise of the the Little Kingdom that contained of Ham that 'Thame' should be motor industry continued right up to Farmer Giles of Ham 3: The heart 'Tame', 'for Thame with an "h" is a the 1960s and brought with it its has gone out of the Little Kingdom, folly without warrant'; this was a lin own by-product, the proliferation of and the woods and plains are aero guist's dig at the Irrational spellings large fast road networks at the dromes and bomb-practice targets.1 within the English language. expense of the English countryside. A casual reader might think such a One can discover by examining Tolkien would say late in his life conclusion reactionary. Tolkien had several sources how life in when he saw a new road being built: a great love for all things natural, Oxfordshire changed drastically 'There goes the last of England's and trees In particular4, but I shall from the 1910s when Tolkien first arable!'7 He was for instance con show that his concerns for the envi came to Oxford and grew to love cerned by plans in the mid-1950s to ronment were well-founded even as Oxfordshire and its countryside, to build a relief road across early as 1945. Taken today, his fears the 1940s and 1950s and indeed Christchurch Meadows, a local gov for it verge on the prophetic. beyond that time to when it fell from ernment scheme that thankfully One is always confronted when his esteem. never went beyond the planning reading Tolkien's so-called minor This paper examines the popula stage.8 So great was the public out works with this innate passion for tion growth, the increase in the cry at the time that a plan was seri the English Midlands countryside, a Oxford city housing stock, the ously considered to build a two- passion that his detractors might changes in rural Oxfordshire due to mlle-long tunnel from The Plain run say has almost a hint of the ridicu the defence of the realm during ning under Christchurch Meadows lous about it. But that would be to World War Two, and the Increase in and emerging at the other side of look at the parody of the man, and road traffic. Oxford in order to relieve traffic with not the man himself and his sur First of all, the growth in popula minimal environmental Impact, roundings and scholarship. I say tion. Why should a sleepy University though this was eventually proven to 'so-called' minor works, for Shippey town grow at all? The answer is the be too expensive.9 has suggested that, on another rise in prominence of the motor car. Another road that Tolkien would

Alex originally dedicated this paper to the memory of Mr Perey Broadiss, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford; 1906-1989, his 'Gaffer Gam gee'.

3 Mallorn XLI likely have been opposed to would Birmingham. From 1986 onwards, and a heart of its own. Yet this have been the Marston Ferry Link £133,000 per year was allocated to 'London effect' is only a more recent Road, completed in 1971, but dis the land acquisition budget for build phase of the capital's threat to the cussed for many years before ing new roads in Oxfordshire.12 How Oxfordshire countryside, and to the that.10 In the years that the Tolkien Tolkien would have hated the 'motor city of Oxford itself, which had family lived in Northmoor Road11 cars' progress' at the cost of yet begun in earnest during World War they often hired a punt for the sum more precious Midlands country Two with the evacuation of many mer and went up the Cherwell to side. Londoners to Oxford, which was a Water Eaton and Islip and pic Along with the rise of the 'safe city’, in order to escape the nicked, or to Wood Eaton looking for motor car, one might well add the Blitz. Only one enemy aircraft ever butterflies, or took drives to spread of the London commuter belt flew over Oxford, and' that was late Worminghall, Brill, Charlton-on- beyond the Berkshire town of in the war to photograph the Cowley Otmoor or West into Berkshire up Reading to engulf Oxford, as con works then used for aircraft White Horse Hill to see the ancient tributing to the loss of self and the repairs13. Thomas Sharp called it a long-barrow known as Wayland's fading of the uniqueness of Oxford whim of luck that Oxford was never Smithy. Looking to the present day as a university city. Oxford was for bombed, unlike its close neighbour he was correct to fear the incursion tunate and yet unfortunate to be Coventry and the city of Exeter to of the road system on the country only fifty-five miles from central the south-west. It was this funda side. For instance, Phase 2 of the London. Commuters first began to mental change in the population of M40 motorway that first linked use the rail system to travel from the city of Oxford which brought Oxford and London in the 1970s Oxford to London via Reading in about a loss of Oxfordshire charac was a reality by 1990, and it cuts numbers during the 1950s and the ter in its people; a dilution, if you right across Otmoor and the areas two-and-a-half-hour journey by car like, of the Midlander, supplanted by of natural beauty that lie there from Oxford to London was cut to a the Cockney refugee and also the (including Worminghall, Brill, mere one-hour drive by the building labourers who came to look for work Charlton-on-Otmoor, Islip and Water of the M40 motorway in 1969-1972, from the poorer regions of the coun Eaton) to bring more volumes of completing the 'suburbanisation' of try. The Sam Gamgees of traffic faster to Banbury and a city that once possessed a being Oxfordshire were becoming a rarity.

Population in ,000's

Figure 1. Population of Oxfordshire (as defined 1.4.74) plotted against time.

4 Lost Heart of the Little Kingdom This as much as anything would hood, and found that it had changed there were listed 50,638 as have reinforced the strangeness of almost beyond his recognition: 'How opposed to 44,527 in 1921. the city Tolkien once came to love I envy those whose precious early Examining the statistics of housing as an undergraduate, when he scenery has not been exposed to stock, there was a lower proportion looked at It during the late 1930s such violent and particularly of the larger houses (9 rooms and and early 1940s, and it is little won hideous change.' This was a griev more) and of the very small houses der that he was disheartened. In ous loss for him of childhood mem (4 rooms and less) built in this peri that light the threat of Southern ories, and in Oxford too the changes od, and most houses built were of 5- refugees moving into Bree in The were coming fast and furious. From 6 rooms. This meant that suburban Fellowship of the Ring can be seen 1921 to 1931 the rate of increase of housing estates of redbrick, mostly as an echo of the loss of Oxford the the city population was greater than terraces and semi-detached homes, familiar to Tolkien the man14: 'If in all but two towns throughout the sprang up in that period. These 'pro room isn't found for them, they'll find whole country at 26 per cent. From duction-line dwellings' to match it for themselves', declares the 1931 to 1951 the rate of increase their 'production-line worker- squint-eyed ill-favoured traveller at was scarcely less at 23 percent. 18 dwellers' would not have har The Prancing Pony.15 The same Look at a graphical representation monised with the Gothic-style might have been said, by someone of this population growth from 1891 Oxford of Cotswold stone buildings of the time, to be happening to to 1971 (figure 1). It is important to that Tolkien knew. If one examines Oxford.16 note that up to 1921 the figures are the map of housing stock19 (figure That such roots were important nearly constant, but grow sharply 2) it is immediately clear how large to Tolkien is evident. In a diary entry thereafter. an area of countryside the city ate of 1933, Tolkien makes a significant Oxford housing stock had of up during this period of its growth - statement about the subject of the course to increase in order to the areas in question are the darker loss of early memories.17 He had accommodate the growth in popula ones in the figure. It might be returned in 1933 to the area around tion. The two are interdependent. In thought20 that the building of the Sarehole Mill, where he had spent the 1931 Census18, under the head houses to the North of Oxford city the pleasanter times of his child ing 'structurally separate dwellings', centre for the dons, and their fami-

Figure 2. Oxford city housing stock development to 1970.

5 Mallorn XLI -lies once they were allowed to [M] and several nearby villages took a large team of people working marry, could have been a contribu such as Kidlington [N] and over seventy hours a week four tory factor to Oxford's loss of Kennington [0] became more subur weeks to make a visible impression uniqueness, but this cannot have ban In character. The hills around upon the runway. We did not finish been the case for Tolkien. By 1877 the city were favoured by the pros the task that Easter. Imagine then North Oxford was already devel perous middle classes for the build the acreage subordinated to aero oped, and indeed Summertown ing of larger houses: Boars Hill [P], dromes of Oxfordshire's arable land. dates from 1832, so that Tolkien Cumnor Hill [Q], Headington Hill [R] It is hardly any wonder that Tolkien would have accepted these houses and Shotover [S], This was no was so angered by all that he saw when he first arrived in the city as longer the city Tolkien had known happening around him. part of its character. To visit North during his undergraduate days. His The proliferation of traffic on the Oxford and examine the old houses fears of unbridled growth were well- roads of Oxford city had been a now, it might be difficult to see how founded. Kidlington [N] is now the great social problem for many years. the character of these large largest village in England and was It was not only cars that caused the Victorian dwellings could ever be almost turned Into a town in 1987, damage, but all forms of transporta seen as a part of Oxford, but I but the villagers decided against it, tion. In 1913 William Morris (later myself lived on the Banbury Road though the matter is far from con Lord Nuffield) started an illegal from 1963 to 1971 between North cluded. motor bus service between the sta and South Parades, and in the early The Second World War was the tion and Cowley Road25, In order to 1960s, when the volume of road 'War of the Machines', as Tolkien compete against the inefficient traffic was considerably less and the himself declared.23 It meant that Electric Tramway Company. As he houses had not been turned into aerodromes were required and, was not allowed to collect fares on schools of languages or offices or since these aircraft included the new buses, vouchers were sold guest houses or flats, they pos bombers, bombing practice areas to people In shops. In the first four sessed a stately air of opulence not were needed, mainly to improve days of this illegal service, seven at odds with the grandeur of the accuracy. Unfortunately we have no teen thousand people travelled on older city in the centre. They were Information on bomber-practice tar it. Licences were eventually issued each individualised buildings, no get areas, but there are plenty of to Morris, but he later sold his rights two exactly the same, each standing facts on the aerodromes available. to the Electric Tramway Company, In almost half an acre of gardens. Looking at the map, (figure 3) at the who then changed their name in Their grandeur was the mock- time of the First World War the 1931 to City of Oxford Motor Gothic splendour of Keble College. Cotswolds and Central Midlands Services. Bus passenger numbers It is to be remembered that Tolkien had five aerodromes: Witley (train rose right up until the early 1940s himself chose to live in North Oxford ing), Halton, Weston-on-the-Green when the subsequent boom in pri from 1925 to 1949 at numbers 20 (training), Bicester and Upper vate car ownership forced fewer, and 22 Northmoor Road.21 Heyford. By the time of the end of more economical services. Thomas The districts where the housing the Second World War there were Sharp26 in a very highly regarded stock increased dramatically were 96 of them24. A quick glance at the work said In 1948: 'The heavy con the areas where the greatest popu map shows how the Oxfordshire centration of traffic is threatening to lation increases were recorded. countryside had been gutted. Few break down the entire organisation Conclusively, between 1921 and names are marked, for the sake of of Oxford as a centre of civilised 1931 the population of Cowley and clarity, and the ones closer to life', and that: 'People wait in queues Iffley districts increased by 122 per Oxford Tolkien would have known of for buses that wait in queues.' The cent and Headington district by 79 and objected to. It is important to fumes from these buses at that time percent.22 understand the scale of the devas were apparently most unpleasant By 1939 Oxford Corporation had tation I am talking about; it is per for pedestrians in Oxford city centre. built more than 2000 new council haps fortunate that I was able to Then one had the humble bicycle to houses, most of them at Rose Hill, work at Oakley aerodrome during consider. Sharp27 shows that in Iffley [A], Freelands [B], Gypsy Lane April, 1974. I was a student working 1938 there were over 24,000 bicy [C], South Park [D], Weirs Lane [E], temporarily during the Easter vaca cles in Oxford and that by 1946 New Marston [F], Wolvercote [G], tion moving cars parked on one of there were 44,500 of them, accord Cutteslowe [H] and Headington [I]22. the runways at Oakley aerodrome ing to police records. As Sharp Some of the houses, such as those for Autocar Transporters. These points out, the single bicycle, like on Morrell Avenue,[J] were of a high cars, belonging to the Austin Rover the single locust, is no problem, but standard, though of the others little Group (i.e. the old Morris Motors in swarms they rapidly become a is mentioned (see figure 2 for the Ltd), were parked by mistake on the plague. areas designated by capital letters). wrong runway. Oakley aerodrome So perhaps one might be tempt Private developers by 1937 had built has three such runways. During the ed to say that Tolkien's sensibilities more than 4,700 new houses, most time I worked there, we moved over were irretrievably wounded by the ly in areas added to the city in 1929, four thousand cars of various sizes metamorphosis that had befallen North of Summertown [K] and from one runway to another, and the his beloved Oxford, and so he wrote extending beyond the ring road.' runway we were moving them from no more about It.28 He had bought a Beyond the city boundaries suburbs was by no means entirely covered car in 1932, but when he realised grew up in Botley [L] and Littlemore by cars when we began the task. It the damage that cars were causing

6 Lost Heart of the Little Kingdom

to the environment, and the large become the weave that we recog 'something' can readily be ascer tracts of land being relegated to nise. Tolkien's letters after 1945 tained from the letters that followed road usage, he abandoned driving show a definite softening of his atti in 195036: 'the Silmarillion and all at the outset of World War Two.29 In tude towards his sequel based In that has refused to be suppressed. his early years of driving, he took the Little Kingdom. Asked if he could It has bubbled up, Infiltrated, and his family around the Oxfordshire provide other stories to make up a probably spoiled everything ... which countryside, and it is said that his sufficiently large volume34 Tolkien I have tried to write since. It was style of driving caused him to write responded: 'I should, of course, be kept out of Farmer Giles with an Mr Bliss.30 delighted ... to publish "Farmer Giles effort, but stopped the continuation Tolkien also wrote the unpub of Ham" ... With leisure I could give ... I can turn now to other things, lished allegorical Bovadium him company.' This is noj: the same such as perhaps the Little Kingdom Fragments 31 - a parable about the 'The heart has gone out of the Little of the Wormings37, or to quite other destruction of Oxford by the motores Kingdom' we had before. Later still matters and stories.' Also at much (i.e. cars) that block the streets, in 1949 Tolkien responded to Alien the same time: 'I always thought, asphyxiate the inhabitants and final & Unwin35: 'As for further "legends that in so far as he has virtue, it ly explode. This has a truly modern of the Little Kingdom": I put a refer would have been improved by other flavour to it, if one considers the cur ence to one in the Foreword in case stories of the same kingdom and rent figures of increases in private they should ever come to anything, style; but the domination of the car usage32 and the present anxi or a manuscript.of the fragmentary remoter world was so great that I eties about lead in petrol, car legend should come to light. But could not make them. It may now exhaust emission control33 and pol Georgius and Suet remains only a prove different.' lution clouds covering many large sketch, and it is difficult now to cities in Europe, such as Athens, recapture the spirit of the former It may now prove different. where car usage is regulated. days, when we used to beat the How tantalising to think that he But that is not the whole story. bounds of the L[ittle] Kingdom] in might have done so! But of course The threads of the sequel to Farmer an ancient car.' There seems now to he could no longer let go of 'the Giles of Ham take a few more twists be something else at work in terms Silmarillion and all that'. It was in his in their development before they of recapturing the spirit, and the blood and that is what he continued

7 Mallorn XLI with up to his death. If there had sequel did not get written. Shippey40 and Minor are two villages that been a sequel written, The Little suggests that Tolkien had appear in the story, and there are Kingdom of the Wormings, or what despaired, perhaps, by the time of several Woottons in and around ever it would have been called, what the 1960s of eventually finding the Oxfordshire, notably one close to might it have contained? Tolkien did Lost Straight Road to rejoin his own Abingdon and another not far from give us some clues. In a letter to creations after death - like Smith, or Kidlington. Far Easton and Alien & Unwin in 1939 he wrote38 of: even Frodo, who doubt that salva Westwood are names that could the adventures of Prince George tion will be theirs, for, like the have come from the Midlands, but (the farmer's son) and the fat boy Silmarils, they are lost forever. But most interestingly the name Nokes Suovetaurilius (vulgarly Suet), and this would be to ignore a short tale is probably derived from Noke, a vil the Battle of Otmoor.' Carpenter had that sprang into being in the evening lage nestling on the edge of access to some of Tolkien's papers of his life in 1967: Smith of Wootton Otmoor.41 when writing the Biography and Major. So had Tolkien recaptured the informs us39 that Chrysophylax the I would suggest that this short lost heart of the Little Kingdom after dragon was to be re-introduced into tale heralded a new creative strand all? Had it taken him 22 years to do the sequel. There are perhaps more for the Little Kingdom, albeit very so? I would like to believe so. Time, philosophical reasons why the late in the coming. Wootton Major after all, is a great healer.

Notes and References 19. Map based upon one taken from Victoria, p.207. 1. Farmer Giles o f Ham, J.R.R. Tolkien. London: George 20. Biography p.l 13. Allen & Unwin, Reset New Format, 1976. [Hereafter cited as 21. Biography p .l55. FGH]. 1 shall refer to this only once, for a knowledge of the 22. Victoria p.206. text of the story is implicitly assumed for this article. 23. Letters p.l 11. 2. J.R.R. Tolkien: A biography, Humphrey Carpenter. 24. Action Stations 6: Military Airfields of the Cotswolds London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977 [Hereafter cited as and Central Midlands, M.J.F. Bowyer. Cambridge: Patrick Biography] p. 165. Stephens, 1979. 3. The Letters o f J.R.R. Tolkien, Humphrey Carpenter (ed.). 25. Encyclopedia of Oxford, C. Hibbert (ed.). London: London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981 [Hereafter cited as Macmillan, 1988 p.459. Letters] p. 113. 26. Ox. Rep. pp. 19, 31. 4. Letters pp.321,419-20. 27. Ox. Rep. p.92. 5. The Road to Middle-Earth, T.A. Shippey. London, George 28. Letters pp.344-5. Alien & Unwin. 1982 [I-Iereafter cited as Road] pp.75-6. 29. Biography p .l24 30. Biography pp. 159, 163. 6. The Victoria History o f the County o f Oxford, Vol. IV. 3 I. Biography p. 163. Oxford University Press,'1979 [Hereafter cited as Victoria] 32. Cherwell Area Rural Transport Study: Report of Survey 7. Biography p. 125. Findings, Working Paper 105, P.A. Stanley; and Transport 8. Letters p.235 and note 2. pp.16-17. 9. Report of Oxford Roads Enquiry. Ministry of Housing and 33. Leading article, 'Alan Osborn in Strasbourg: Euro-MP's Local Government, 1961 p. 12. vote for US-style exhaust controls', The Daily Telegraph, No. 10. The Transport Debate. Oxfordshire County Planning 41,617, 13.4.89. Department, March 1978 [Hereafter cited as Transport] p.53 34. Letters p. 118. 11. Biography p.160. 35. Letters p. 133. 12. Transport Policy Programme 1985-6. Oxfordshire 36. Letters pp. 136-7, 139. County Council (various maps and tables throughout this 37. The planned sequel to Farmer Giles. report). 38. Letters p.43. 13. Oxford Replanned, Thomas Sharp. Architectural Press, 39. Biography p. 166. 1948 [Hereafter cited as Ox. Rep.] p. 19. 40. Road p.211. 14. The Fellowship o f the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien. London: 41. The similarities are more subtle than just the names; George Allen & Unwin, 2nd Ed., 1968 reprint p. 168. there are sub-plot echoes of the one in the other. Farmer 15. Tolkien had reached the Inn at Bree in The Fellowship of Giles has a Royal Cook who bakes a Mock Dragon Tail - a the Ring before the shadow of the Second World War, but superb confection - for eating each Christmas Eve (see FGH sometime after 1937 (see Letters p.303). pp.20-21.25). Smith o f Wootton Major has the Master Cook, 16. By this I am certainly not accusing Tolkien of parochial who makes at a winter festivity, the Feast of Good Children ism. It is to be remembered that he grew to love the 'dull on each twenty-fourth year, a Great Cake for the Twenty-four stodges' who were his students at Leeds (see Biography feast (see Smith o f Wootton Major, J.R.R. Tolkien. London: p. 104), and his love for language precludes any such narrow George Allen & Unwin, 2nd. Ed., 1975 p.8). It is perhaps not mindedness. It is the dilution of the essential character of a merely fortuitous that the one night children are told to be on place that he would mourn as a linguist and scholar of mat their best behaviour by their parents is Christmas Eve, lest ters historical. Father Christmas leave them no presents; and so a thematic- 17. Biography pp. 124-5. link is forged between the Feast of Good Children and 18. Census Reports 1921, 1931, 1951. HMSO. Christmas Eve.