I was recently caught up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on a Saturday; a relaxing relief following the previous week’s working week.
Whilst enjoying a late brunch (at the Olive & Bean café which easily caters for us gluten sufferers), I decided to check out what connections the area had with Tolkien aside from the North-Eastern fan that is Jay Johnstone. Unsurprisingly (it appears most major English cities appear to claim some connection), there were quite a few results after googling “Tolkien Newcastle” including Tolkien being inspired by family there, along with Hobbit History found here!
Hobbit History? What was this? An undiscovered literary relation of the Red Book of Westmarch, full of Hobbits’ genealogy? No, it wasn’t. The website of a local new source, Chronicle Live, and ITV.com had a story regarding the re-discovery of the grave, at Jesmond Old Cemetery, of Tolkien’s paternal aunt, Grace Bindley Mountain who died on 3rd March, 1947:
The author is also said to have based the character of Saruman on Grace’s husband and Tolkien’s uncle, William Charles Mountain, who was the vice-president of the North East Institute of Mining. “It was over two years ago when we pulled back the brambles and found the grave of JRR Tolkien’s aunt’s grave.
The above quote is from a story that ITV.com ran on 14/12/2012, more than two years after ChronicleLive.co.uk ran the story in a lot more depth:
after a chance discovery in, of all places, a Tyneside graveyard, some of what may have inspired Tolkien can be revealed. And researchers claim among other things, that Saruman from Lord of the Rings may well have been inspired by a Geordie pitman. What is certain is John Ronald Reuel Tolkien had strong links to Newcastle and a dedicated team renovating graves at the city’s Jesmond Old Cemetery have uncovered a secret about him. They have discovered the author’s aunt Grace Tolkien lived in Jesmond and is buried within the walls of the cemetery.
What is the difference between a cemetery, a graveyard and a churchyard?
CEMETERY
A burial-ground generally; now esp. a large public park or ground laid out expressly for the interment of the dead, and not being the ‘yard’ of any church.
“cemetery, n.”. OED Online. December 2022. Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/29562?redirectedFrom=Cemetery& (accessed January 01, 2023).
CHURCHYARD
The enclosed piece of consecrated ground in which a church stands, formerly almost universally used as a burial ground for the parish or district, and occasionally still used for Christian burials or memorials when space permits.
“churchyard, n.”. OED Online. December 2022. Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/32840?redirectedFrom=churchyard& (accessed January 01, 2023)
GRAVEYARD
A burial-ground.
“graveyard, n.”. OED Online. December 2022. Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/81042?redirectedFrom=GRAVEYARD& (accessed January 01, 2023).
It appears that a Cemetery and Graveyard are interchangeable and do not rely upon the presence of a Christian church.
The Grave
It wasn’t just the re-discovery of Grace’s grave that caught my attention, but that both sites suggested that Tolkien based Saruman on Grace’s husband, William Charles Mountain! Obviously, I can’t help but think that the giant corporate news outlet did nothing about directly researching the story themselves and instead relied upon other means.
Stepping onto the road outside Olive & Bean I soon found myself less than a mile along the road at Jesmond Old Cemetery. Originally planned at 11 acres and holding over 25,000 bodies at the last count, the trick now would be finding Grace’s plot. Interestingly, the cemetery accommodates both C of E conformist and non-conformist burials as detailed on the welcome board:
Photo 1; taken by myself, 3rd December, 2022Photo 2: Hand-drawn plan of cemetery; Photo taken by myself 3rd December, 2022
“The cross is made of very light grey granite, and the grave is situated about 75 yards from the North-West corner and 10 yards from the South-West wall. It is being rapidly broken apart by the expansion of living stumps of shrubs that – until about a decade ago, covered and concealed the grave.”
These directions approximate to the area “XX CON” in Photo 2; the safer part of the cemetery as this area was consecrated. Had I turned left however, I would be walking into the unconsecrated area; most certainly Hammer horror territory especially in the dying December light, dampness fastened in the air and on the ground and we would also be wrestling with further Dunharrow inspiration as seen in the earlier Chronicle Live reference.
And so I was faced with the grave in question, perhaps the final resting place of Saruman?
The grave of William Charles Mountain and Tolkien’s aunt, Grace Bindley Mountain; photos taken by me 03/12/2022
The signs of the hard work of the Friends of Jesmond Old Cemetery were still very evident with the stumps of long chopped brambles adorning the broken surface of the grave, headed by that grey granite cross which had the following engraved upon it:
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
WILLIAM CHARLES MOUNTAIN J.P. WHO DIED 26th JANUARY 1928. “LIFE’S RACE WELL RUN: LIFE’S WORK WELL DONE.”
ALSO OF HIS BELOVED WIFE GRACE BINDLEY WHO DIED 3rd MARCH 1947.
The quote on the cross I believe comes from physician and poet, Edward Hazen Parker and his poem:
Life’s race well run. Life’s work all done, Life’s victory won; Now cometh rest.
Sorrows are o’er, Trials are no more, Ship reacheth shore; Now cometh rest.
Faith yields to sight, Day follows night Jesus gives light, Now cometh rest.
We a while wait, Bur soon or late, Death opens the gate Then cometh rest.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll immediately (and completely un-academically) pick up on the line “Ship reacheth shore” and think of the Elves reaching Valinor, the Undying Lands. However, the poem finishes with the gift of Men, Death, which opens the gate, allowing Men to leave the restrictions of the fated Music of the Ainur.
William Charles Mountain & Grace Bindley
Anyway, back to our Northern pit-man Saruman. William Charles Mountain was indeed involved with the pits of the time in this area of north-east England. Along with a Mr. Ernest Scott, they formed the Newcastle-upon-Tyne company Ernest Scott and Mountain where William
“achieved considerable success in the application of electrical machinery for the pumping of water from colliery workings.”
Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History 2016, William Charles Mountain, Grace’s Guide, viewed 04/12/2022, <https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/William_Charles_Mountain>
William “was a member of the Institution of Mining Engineers, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and the North-East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders.” (ibid.) As well as the above, he was also a JP and a member of the Iron and Steel Institute. All this iron, steel, engineering and connection to pit connections certainly chimes with the work Saruman undertook at Isengard. Prior to this northern discovery, I was completely unaware of any real-life influences to his characters, certainly not Saruman specifically. A quick online check revealed nothing to corroborate the suggestion that William Charles Mountain, the husband of Tolkien’s paternal aunt, Grace Bindley, was his inspiration for that traitorous devil Saruman!
Returning home, I endeavoured to discover more, starting with the enthusiastic Tolkien stalwarts Humphrey Carpenter, Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull.
In the early opening pages of Carpenter’s biography, the connection between Ronald (as J.R.R. Tolkien was known at the time) and his aunt Grace Bindley is evident from an early age. Carpenter details a letter that the young Ronald wrote, referring to “Auntie Gracie”. The letter never got sent because of his father’s death:
“9 Ashfield Road, King’s Heath, February 14th, 1896.
My dear Daddy, I am so glad I am coming back to see you it is such a long time since we came away from you I hope the ship will bring us all back to you Mamie and Baby and me. I know you will be so glad to have a letter from your little Ronald it is such a long time since I wrote to you I am got such a big man now because I have got a man’s coat and a man’s bodice Mamie says you will not know Baby or me we have got such big men we have got such a lot of Christmas presents to show you Auntie Gracie has been to see us I walk every day and only ride in my mailcart a little bit. Hilary sends lots of love and kisses and so does your loving Ronald
Carpenter, H., 1977, J. R. R. Tolkien: a Biography, 3rd Edition, London, George Allen & Unwin
A few years later Tolkien’s mother, Mabel, died. She left the care of her two sons, Ronald and Hilary, to Father Francis Morgan. Unfortunately, Father Francis was not in a position to house both the boys. According to Hammond & Scull:
“By January 1905, however, Father Francis will arrange for Ronald and Hilary to live with Beatrice Suffield, the widow of Mabel’s youngest brother, William…During school holidays Ronald and Hilary often stay with other relatives. Among these are two of their father’s sisters (see *Tolkien family), Aunt Grace who lives in Newcastle with her husband William Mountain and their children Kenneth and Dorothy, and Aunt Mabel who lives at Abbotsford, 69 Wake Green Road, Moseley, Birmingham with her husband Tom Mitton and their children (*Mitton family). But most often they stay with the Incledons, who now live at Barnt Green, Worcestershire, near Rednal.”
Scull, C. and Hammond, W. G., 2017, The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion & Guide: Chronology, London, HarperCollinsPublishers
This was confirmation that J.R.R. Tolkien spent time with the Mountains.
But what about being influenced so much by Grace’s husband that he became a foundation for Saruman in later years?
Nothing.
Not in my library anyway. So where does this suggestion come from? Was it something made up by the media outlets?
Maybe not entirely…
Why?
Digging a little deeper online into William Charles Mountain and Saruman, I came across a little gem of a blog by Troels Forchhammer (who I had the pleasure of being locked in a virtual chat room with once…), www.parmakenta.com which had its own reference to William Charles Mountain (this page is a treasure-trove of info just in itself!):
“Amon Hen no. 236, July 2012 Amon Hen is the bulletin of the Tolkien Society, and as such is the primary carrier of the everyday communications of the society: the calls for volunteers, news from the smials, news on various events, the password for the members-only section of the home page, new members etc. etc. It also habitually carries various artwork among which Jef Murray’s often features prominently such as the lovely drawing, Gandalf and Bilbo, on the front cover of this issue. Of other interesting items in this issue, Ian Spittlehouse provides new information on the progress of the Leeds Blue Plaque, Christine Ahmed writes about Tolkien’s paternal aunt and her husband, Grace Bindley Tolkien and William Charles Mountain, suggesting that Saruman may owe some small parts to this old Newcastle industrialist. Jim Allen continues a discussion about some claims made in an earlier issue by David Doerr. Anne Marie Gazzolo offers a commentary on ‘The Sacrifice of Frodo’, which I find has some interesting perspectives, but takes the ideas much too far (in my opinion she extrapolates the evidence beyond breaking point). Shaun Gunner deplores the absence of the old story-internal debates — the Glorfindels, the elven-ears, the irredeemability of Orcs and the nature of Tom Bombadil . . . I would rather ask ‘what are the new debates’? Finally there is an interesting (but all too short) article by Dale Nelson that looks into the possible influences of the Kibbo Kift movement, to which Tolkien Society founder Vera Chapman belonged in the twenties and early thirties.”
A search for William Charles Mountain on Hammond & Scull’s own website also proved a great resource, although the links in question were all now dead.
p. 1009, second full paragraph, entry for Tolkien family: The ‘Myers Newcastle Time Line’ website by Alan Myers states that Tolkien visited Newcastle upon Tyne in each of the years 1910–1912, but offers no evidence for these dates. Christine Ahmed, in the article ‘William Mountain: A Northern Industrialist, Now Forgotten’ and in the article ‘Tolkien in Newcastle’, provides details of the life of Tolkien’s uncle William Mountain, an industrialist who for twenty-four years led the company Ernest Scott and Mountain, maker of electric lighting for mills and factories, as well as pumps, dynamos, and high-speed engines for railways and collieries. … He was a member of the local Literary and Philosophical Society, and in 1925 became a Vice-President of the North East Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers (now the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers)… …Ahmed probably oversteps in saying that Grace Mountain was with Mabel Tolkien when she died in 1904 – Carpenter’s account has only May Incledon, Mabel’s sister, and Father Francis Morgan at Mabel’s side at the time of her death, both of whom, unlike Mabel’s sister-in-law Grace, lived nearby. And it is surely mere speculation for Ahmed to conclude that the character of William Mountain, the northern industrialist, ‘resonates with some aspects of the character of the brilliant, power-hungry, but defeated Saruman’ – which aspects, she does not specify. William Mountain, she complains, ‘was a man as passionate about his world of mines and machines as Tolkien was about his own abstract world, and both had huge vision. But the personality clash and perhaps over-dominance of the Uncle who had been so hugely successful when Tolkien was young, may have been a cause for him not being mentioned at all in Tolkien biographies.’ We find this to be as unlikely as the notion that ‘Tolkien would have got an inside understanding of mines [from his uncle] to prepare for his “Mines of Moria”; his knowledge would have not just come from Birmingham’s “Black Country” where he lived, but also from the then heartland of the mining industry in England – the North-East of England.’ There is, of course, a great deal of difference between the manufacturer of equipment for mines and an actual miner, and between an English mine and the mansion of Khazad-dûm.
HammondandScull.com, 2018, Addenda and Corrigenda to The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide (2006) Vol. 2: Reader’s Guide, Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, viewed 04/12/2022, <https://www.hammondandscull.com/addenda/guide.html>
Both these sites are referencing a Christina Ahmed. Whereas Troels continued the suggestion that William Mountain may have figured slightly in the inspiration for Saruman, Hammond & Scull belive it to be no more than sheer speculation. But what of Christina Ahmed’s original internet posting? If you try the links in the above quote from Hammond & Scull, they all lead to sites that are no longer supported. However, we can see the original address of the dead-links. Christina Ahmed’s site is http://lotrandthescottishborder.co.uk, with the first reference being /mountain.htm and the second reference /connections.htm.
And so to the magic of The Wayback Machine! (https://archive.org/web/) Typing in http://lotrandthescottishborder.co.uk, we are presented with one snapshot, from 21/04/2013:
Although snapshotted in 2013, it is copyrighted to Christina Ahmed in 2009 which is well before the rediscovery of Grace Bindley’s grave and the reprted story by Chronicle Live (and ITV.com who hung onto Chronicle’s coat-tails). Although the snap-shotted page mentions William Charles Mountain, it does not make any reference to him providing any sort of inspiration to J. R. R. Tolkien for the character Saruman. Even the associated link in the links column is, unfortunately, dead. We may never know exactly what was said on this internet page, although it was quite probably available to Chronicle Live at the time of the re-discovery of Grace Bindley and William Charles Mountain’s grave.
However, we may be able to get an inkling (every pun intended…); the page finishes with:
“This website has received much support from Dr. Lynn Forest-Hill, The Education Officer of The Tolkien Society (c) Christine Ahmed 2009”
I’ve absolutely no idea how to reference a page that is no longer in existence and only exists through an internet snapshot…..
Combining this reference to the Tolkien Society and the earlier reference by Troels Forchhammer to the Tolkien Society’s Amon Hen, edition 236, we may yet “mine” further information (yes, the puns keep coming….)
Amon Hen is a regular publication for Tolkien Society Members[i], including access to the back catalogue. As suggested above, edition 236 has an article by Christina Ahmed titled “William Charles Mountain J.P. and Grace Bindley Tolkien”. Amon Hen 236 is from July 2012, two years following the original Chronicle Live story. Here then is an assumption: that Christina Ahmed’s article in Amon Hen 236 was based on work she had already worked upon for her website http://lotrandthescottishborder.co.uk
The article provides a great resource about the life of William Charles Mountain. Christina also mentions that she met Marjorie, Grace’s grandson’s wife and receives a further insight into the musical history of the Tolkien family (I’ll expand a little more inthis in another blog).
The interesting, and perhaps crucial part to this article in Amon Hen is the final closing paragraph:
“William Mountain was a respected engineer and J.P., but an industrialist who climbed too high, lost what he had built in the industrial race at the time, and kept the keys to his factory, but who is now forgotten. His life seems to have a reflection in the character of the brilliant Saruman, the industrialist who climbed too high, lost everything in his race for more power, kept the keys to Orthanc, and disappeared.”
Butler, A. A. P. (Ed.), 2012, Amon Hen236, Horsham, Tolkien Society.
Here we have a reference to William Mountain and Saruman in the same breath by Christina Ahmed, and I would like to think not too dissimilar to what she would have written on her website back in 2009.
Christina Ahmed comments on how William Mountain’s life is a reflection of the character Saruman, a fictional character that came into print approximately a quarter of a century after William’s death. This is so far away from saying that William was the inspiration for Saruman; indeed, Ahmed is simply saying that William was more like Saruman. This was after Saruman had already been written.
This north-eastern sojourn has provided to me a deeper insight into what was simply a passing reference in Carpenter’s biography, more appreciation for Hammond & Scull, further admiration for pure the Tolkien fandom that is Troels Forchhammmer and the passion of societies such as the Friends of Jesmond Old Cemetery, and a strengthening belief in the poor quality of journalism in the face of increasing cultural appreciation.
As I alluded earlier, put a major city name into a search engine, along with the name Tolkien, and some (tenuous) link is likely to appear. Add to it the desperation of a local news source to link to any current zeitgeist and this is where mis-information can begin. For me, that Tolkien and fantasy is now so mainstream that this happens is brilliant!
(I grew up in the late 70’s and 80’s as the nerd in in the corner…)
[i] All members of the Society have access to the entire back catalogue of Amon Hen in the form of a digital archive. This also includes Andúril (issues 1 and 2) and The Tolkien Society Bulletin, both of which were published by the Society prior to Amon Hen.
If you are not a member of the Society, you could use the interlibrary loan service available at most public and university libraries. Alternatively you can order articles directly from the British Library. Please note that it might be cheaper to purchase back issues from the Society, but this is dependant on availability.
