Encyclopedia of Arda: Burrowes Family

"...on June the Twenty-second Messrs Grubb, Grubb, and Burrowes would sell by auction the effects of the late Bilbo Baggins Esquire, of Bag-End, Underhill, Hobbiton."

The Hobbit 19, The Last Stage

A surname of the Hobbits of the Shire that (in this spelling at least) is only recorded once: in the name of the company of auctioneers who were about to sell Bag End when Bilbo unexpectedly returned from his travels.

Although this version of the name is unique, it may well be related to 'Burrows', which does appear several times in The Lord of the Rings (Milo Burrows and his family were distant relatives of Bilbo). Though the connection is uncertain, there are grounds for making it: in the very earliest drafts of the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings¹, the name later standardised as 'Burrows' is spelt as 'Burrowes', suggesting that the families were indeed one and the same.

Notes

1	Reproduced in The Return of the Shadow, Volume 6 of The History of Middle-earth.

Burrowes Family

One of the auctioneers of Bag End

Notes

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