Hilary Tolkien?

[Birdland]

This is just idle curiosity, but does anybody know anything about Tolkien's brother Hilary. Like what he did, and what he thought of his brother's works?

He seems to be just a footnote in anything I found on the net.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Birdland

I like "The Ghastly Neekerbreeker!"

I know very little about Hillary Tolkien. He lived from 1894 to 1976. J.R.R.Tolkien named his second son Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien, so presumably that referred to his brother. There are also occasional references to JRRT attending some occasions like weddings for his nephews.

The biographies refer to some of the boys' experiences together after the death of their mother, but not much beyond that, at least not anything that sticks out in my head. Michael White's biography of Tolkien does say this:

The boys shared an unusually strong bond and relied on each other, for without a father figure the only male company they had was with each other. Not surprisingly, both of them became exceptionally close to their mother.

Other than that, I can't think of anything. Maybe, if some had a copy of the book The Tolkien Family Album (I think that's what it's called), it might talk about him there.
sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[Amarinth]

birdie, i thought for a moment there this had something to do with edith doing a hillary clinton smilies/biggrin.gif ... nice to know more of jrrt's family, though.

[Birdland]

Thanks, Child!

For 3 months I kept seeing that man's name every time I came to the Downs, and I finally got curious enough to look him up: nothing!

After childhood, he just seems to have dropped out of the Tolkien radar. I just wondered if he followed his older brother into academia, or what path he chose. Did he read early drafts of his brother's books, or think them so much "pish-posh".

Hmmmmm...wonder if any characters in LoTR or The Hobbit are based on a pesky younger brother? smilies/smile.gif

[Child of the 7th Age]

Birdland -- Just ran across one more reference to Hilary. He was a farmer, apparently raised fruit. So he seems to have followed a very different path than his brother. sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[Orodhromeus]

Nature-lover & industrial-hater too apparently, however...

[Birdland]

Thanks, Child! Hmmmm, so one was a gardener, and one was a scholar. Sound like a couple of characters we know? smilies/smile.gif

[Child of the 7th Age]

Birdland -- Ho, ho. Very clever. A gardener and a scholar! Something else too--the farm was in Evesham, Worcestershire which was in the West Midlands (where the Suffield wing of the family was from). This, along with Warwickshire, was, I believe, the model for the Shire.

There is one other point of interest I pulled out of the Tolkien Family Album which I took out of the Library. This isn't about Hilary, but it's another one of those possible coincidences with the writings. The Tolkien family moved to 11 St.Marks Terrace in the 1920s, not far from the University. The area is described as "dingy and soot covered". Chemicals in the air rotted the curtains out every six months. Baby Michael was covered head to toe "with smuts if he was left outside in his pram for any length of time." And JRRT had to change his collar three times a day, if he wanted it to be clean. No wonder he felt as he did about industrialization and the environment! sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[Halfir]

If you can get hold of a copy of Humphrey Carpenter's JRR Tolkien- A Biography, pp. 28-76 gives a fairly detailed account of their relationship which was indeed close. After the First World War Hilary bought a small orchard and market garden near Evesham, the ancestral town of his mother's family - the Suffields.(There is a fairly hilarious account of Tolkien trying to drive his wife and family on a visit to Hilary in 1932).

Worcestershire - the county from which the Suffiled's came, is also closest of all English counties to The Shire.

Carpenter gives a poignant picture of the two old brothers in their declining years, and after Edith's death and JRR's return to Oxford, watching cricket and tennis on the telvision at Hilary's market garden home, and drinking whisky together.