nothinglikethesun
Rivendell
Did Tolkien have duel-citizenship?
Tolkien's citizenship
- Thread starter nothinglikethesun
- Start date
dernwyn
Super Moderator
And would be horrified to be considered anything else. He identified strongly with the West-midlands and the ancient Mercian tongue ("I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)" [Letter #163], and was enamoured of his Anglo-Saxon roots via his Suffield heritage.
He considered himself English, as opposed to British. And although he did travel extensively on the Continent and Ireland, he never ventured elsewhere, and never took a dual citizenship - unless, of course, you consider him to also be a citizen of Middle-earth! [
]
He considered himself English, as opposed to British. And although he did travel extensively on the Continent and Ireland, he never ventured elsewhere, and never took a dual citizenship - unless, of course, you consider him to also be a citizen of Middle-earth! [
]
FarFromHome
Valinor
on Wikipedia, I get the impression that people born in South Africa before 1949 were simply British subjects. After 1949, Tolkien might have been eligible to claim South African citizenship if he'd wanted to, but there would have been no reason for him to want to do so since he'd left as such a small child and seemed to have no further links with the country. (One complication is that back in the days of the British Empire, citizenship wasn't thought of as a right - instead, you were a subject, which was seen as a duty. You owed allegiance to the King or Queen of the day. You couldn't choose to give it up, and as far as I know it didn't give you any particular rights to live in another country in the Empire.)
L. Ron Halfelven
Grey Havens
FarFromHome
Valinor
I'd always just assumed that JRRT was born in "South Africa", rather than in a location that subsequently became part of South Africa. And I'm afraid I'm woefully ignorant about the history of the Boers and all the rest of this period in Southern African politics.
Tolkien would clearly have inherited his British status from his parents (as would still be the case today), but unless the Orange Free State had different rules than most modern countries, he would also have been entitled to citizenship of the State, by virtue of having been born there. So, whether he ever claimed it or not, it seems quite possible that he would have been entitled to dual citizenship. By analogy with one somewhat similar example I happen to be more familiar with (Newfoundland which became a part of Canada in 1949), I would have expected that anyone born in the territory which subsequently became part of South Africa would be entitled to South African citizenship.
Tolkien would clearly have inherited his British status from his parents (as would still be the case today), but unless the Orange Free State had different rules than most modern countries, he would also have been entitled to citizenship of the State, by virtue of having been born there. So, whether he ever claimed it or not, it seems quite possible that he would have been entitled to dual citizenship. By analogy with one somewhat similar example I happen to be more familiar with (Newfoundland which became a part of Canada in 1949), I would have expected that anyone born in the territory which subsequently became part of South Africa would be entitled to South African citizenship.
Silverlode
Super Moderator
[laugh]
