Description:For the next four years Jane and Edwin lived at Gedling, Nottinghamshire, and Jane did not go out to work. Both were aged thirty-three when they married; they had no children. In May 1909 Edwin died. Jane applied for a post as Warden of University Hall at St. Andrew’s, Scotland’s oldest university. St. Andrew’s required a woman to work with female students, but the Principal was opposed, as it was still unusual for women to work (or study) at universities, formerly an entirely male domain. However Jane was appointed, and her obituary written in 1964 shows that her work there from the summer of 1909 to the summer of 1911 was greatly appreciated.
[see: ref 2]
From 1911 Jane owned and worked on farms. Firstly, with Ellen Brookes-Smith, she ran two small farms back at Gedling. J.R.R. Tolkien visited them there, and his younger brother Hilary worked on the farm. Jane later bought a fruit-farm for Hilary near Evesham in Worcestershire. In 1923 she purchased an old manor-house and farm at Dormston, Worcestershire; and restored its former name of Bag End. She sold the farm and manor-house in 1931 but kept the half-timbered cottages there.
The reports for Birmingham Girls’ Old Edwardians Club [10] show that for several years from 1933 onwards Jane was at Pleshey near Chelmsford in Essex. There was a spiritual tradition at Pleshey, and many went to stay there for retreats. During 1933-34 Jane was living at the Retreat House. The Warden at the Retreat House from 1928 to 1938 was Lucy Menzies, whom Jane probably knew from St. Andrew’s. Jane enjoyed the works of medieval women mystics such as Julian of Norwich and Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Lucy Menzies later translated the writings of Mechtild into English.
Jane moved back to Dormston in 1937. Because she moved frequently Tolkien did not know where to send a copy of his new children’s book; The Hobbit, in September, and had to wait until he could get her address from Hilary.[11]She stayed in Dormston until 1948, lived in Sussex with her niece and brother-in-law in the early 1950s and then lived in a caravan on Hilary Tolkien’s farm. She was active to the end of her life; J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in 1961 that Jane had gone ‘botanising in Switzerland’ only a few years earlier.[12] Jane finally moved to South Wales to live with Roland Suffield’s son Frank and his wife Marjorie. She died there aged 90 in February 1963.[13]
[Photograph on this page: Jane Neave haymaking at Bag End, 1931. Photo from the Suffield Collection,reproduced by kind permission of Oliver Suffield]
References
[1] Records of both these societies are in the Archives and Heritage section, Birmingham Central Library.
See- Central Literary Association: L50.7; Birmingham Dramatic and Literary Club Archives IIR 18;
[2] Tolkien’s Gedling, Morton, A.H. and Hayes, J.
[3] See: Kelly’s Birmingham directories. See also: MS 3375/440438 (lease documents).
[4] King Edward’s School Lists; Old Edwardian’s Gazette; (Birmingham A & H, L 48.111)
[5] King Edward’s High School for Girls Birmingham 1883-1935, Vardy, W.I., (A & H, L48.111)
[6] King Edward’s Foundation Reports, (A & H, L48.111)
[7] Town Crier (A & H, LF 08.2)
[8] Birmingham School Board Election Literature 1900, (A & H, LF 48.21)
[9] Reminiscences of an octogenarian; Knox, E.A.; (A & H, L78.1 KNO)
[10] Birmingham Girls’ Old Edwardians Club, A & H, L 48.111
[11] Hammond, Wayne and Scull, Christina, The J.R.R. Tolkien Comanion and Guide Chronology 2006
[12] Tolkien, J.R.R. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien ed. Carpenter, 1981
[13] Index of Wills/Calendar of Grants, A & H