Arthur Tolkien
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Arthur Reuel Tolkien, the father of J.R.R. Tolkien, was born in Handsworth, Stafford, England, about February of 1857. He was the eldest child of John Benjamin Tolkien and Mary Jane Stowe, who had married on 16 February, 1856 in All Saints Parish Church, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England. Arthur had at least 5 siblings: Mabel Tolkien (1858), who became Mrs. Thomas Evans Mitton; Grace Bindley Tolkien (1861), who became Mrs. William Charles Mountain; Florence Mary Tolkien (1863), who became Mrs. Tom Hadley; Wilfred Henry Tolkien, a stockbroker, and Laurence George H. Tolkien, a life and fire insurance secretary, who married Grace. Marian Esther Tolkien (1866) and Mary Tolkien (1870) may also have been sisters of Arthur.
Arthur's father John had previously been married, to Jane Holmwood, with whom he had four children: Emily, born 1838, Louisa, born 1840, John Benjamin, born 1845 and Jane, born 1846.
John had been a piano teacher and turner and a music seller, but he had gone bankrupt. Arthur did not follow his father into the traditional Tolkien trade in pianos, which many of his London cousins also followed; instead he became a bank clerk and ended up moving to South Africa, where he was later joined by his fiance, Mabel Suffield. They were married on 16 April, 1891 in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Two children followed, but Mabel felt the English climate would be better for the boys' health and returned to England. Arthur remained in South Africa, where he died of severe haemorrhage following rheumatic fever, on 15 February 1896, before he had the opportunity to join his family in England.
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