Tawney's first important work as a historian was "The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century" (1912). He was a Fellow of Balliol College from 1918 to 1921. From 1917 to 1931, he was a lecturer at the London School of Economics. In 1926 he helped found the Economic History Society with Sir William Ashley, amongst others, and became the joint editor of its journal, "The Economic History Review". From 1931 until retirement in 1949, he was a professor of economic history at the LSE and Professor Emeritus after 1949. He was an Honorary Doctor of the universities of Oxford, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, London, Chicago, Melbourne, and Paris.