Portal:University of Oxford

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The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, United Kingdom. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation. It grew rapidly from 1167, when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two English ancient universities share many common features and are jointly referred to as Oxbridge.

The University of Oxford is made up of 43 colleges, consisting of 36 semi-autonomous constituent colleges, four permanent private halls and three societies (colleges that are departments of the university, without their own royal charter), and a range of academic departments which are organised into four divisions. Each college is a self-governing institution within the university, controlling its own membership and having its own internal structure and activities. All students are members of a college. The university does not have a main campus, but its buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city centre. Undergraduate teaching at Oxford consists of lectures, small-group tutorials at the colleges and halls, seminars, laboratory work and occasionally further tutorials provided by the central university faculties and departments. Postgraduate teaching is provided in a predominantly centralised fashion.

Oxford operates the Ashmolean Museum, the world's oldest university museum; Oxford University Press, the largest university press in the world; and the largest academic library system nationwide. In the fiscal year ending 31 July 2023, the university had a total consolidated income of £2.92 billion, of which £789 million was from research grants and contracts.

Oxford has educated a wide range of notable alumni, including 30 prime ministers of the United Kingdom and many heads of state and government around the world. 73 Nobel Prize laureates, 4 Fields Medalists, and 6 Turing Award winners have matriculated, worked, or held visiting fellowships at the University of Oxford, while its alumni have won 160 Olympic medals. Oxford is the home of numerous scholarships, including the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the oldest international graduate scholarship programmes. (Full article...)

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The alumni of Jesus College include two Prime Ministers (Harold Wilson of Britain (pictured) and Norman Manley of Jamaica), a Speaker of the House of Commons of England (Sir William Williams), a co-founder of Plaid Cymru (D. J. Williams) and a co-founder of the African National Congress (Pixley ka Isaka Seme). Politicians from Australia (Neal Blewett), New Zealand (Harold Rushworth), Sri Lanka (Lalith Athulathmudali) and the United States (Heather Wilson) also studied at the college. Lawyers include a Lord Chancellor (Lord Sankey) and a Law Lord (Lord du Parcq). Clergy include three Archbishops of Wales (A. G. Edwards, Glyn Simon and Gwilym Owen Williams). Celticists include Sir John Morris-Jones, and historians include David Powel, who published the first printed history of Wales in 1584. The list includes Angus Buchanan (who won the Victoria Cross) and T. E. Lawrence, better known as "Lawrence of Arabia." Record-breaking quadriplegic solo sailor Hilary Lister was a student, as were Magnus Magnusson (presenter of Mastermind), Welsh poet Gwyn Thomas and television weather presenters Kirsty McCabe and Siân Lloyd. (Full article...)

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Susanna Clarke (born 1959) is a British author best known for her debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004), an alternate history which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. After studying at St Hilda's College, Oxford, Clarke worked in publishing and then taught English in Italy and in Spain. She began Jonathan Strange in 1993 and worked on it during her spare time. For the next decade, she published short stories from the Strange universe, but it was not until 2003 that Bloomsbury bought her manuscript and began work on its publication. The novel became a bestseller and won several awards. Two years later, she published a collection of her short stories, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories (2006). Both Clarke's novel and her short stories are set in a magical England and written in a pastiche of the styles of 19th-century writers such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. While Strange focuses on the relationship of two men, Jonathan Strange and Gilbert Norrell, the stories in Ladies focus on the power women gain through magic. (more...)

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St John's College was established in 1555 by Sir Thomas White, who was later Lord Mayor of London. He was Master of the Merchant Taylors' Company and also established other educational foundations including Merchant Taylors' School. St John's was established as a Roman Catholic foundation in the time of Queen Mary, on the site of St Bernard's College, a monastery and house of study of the Cistercian order that had been closed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The site, on the east side of St Giles', is to the north of Balliol College and Trinity College. The buildings include Canterbury Quad, the first example of Italian Renaissance architecture in Oxford, and 20th-century additions such as the neo-Italianate Garden Quad, built in 1993. It is one of the larger Oxford colleges, with about 370 undergraduates and 280 postgraduates. Former students include Edmund Campion (Roman Catholic martyr), William Laud (Archbishop of Canterbury), Tony Blair (former British prime minister) and the author Kingsley Amis. The President of St John's is the psychologist Margaret Snowling. (Full article...)

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Credit: David Smith

The quadrangle of Pembroke College, with Tom Tower of Christ Church behind. Pembroke was founded in 1624 and named after William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, the Chancellor of the University. J. R. R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and two books of the Lord of the Rings trilogy when he was a Fellow of the college.

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Did you know

Articles from Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives about the university and people associated with it:

... that the Scots American War Memorial (detail pictured) has a poetic line by Ewan Mackintosh who was killed while observing fighting at Cambrai?
... that William David Davies was the first Welsh non-conformist to obtain a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Oxford?
... that former Gloucestershire cricket captain Sir Derrick Bailey founded an airline and based the colour of its planes on the racing colours of his South African father?
... that English mathematician and geographer Robert Hues served his master Thomas Grey, the last Baron Grey de Wilton, while Grey was imprisoned in the Tower of London?
... that Rev William Cotton, vicar of Frodsham, Cheshire, introduced the skills of beekeeping to New Zealand in the 1840s?

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Neither rope-dancers nor players (who go on the stage for gain's sake), nor sword-matches, or sword players are to be permitted within the University of Oxford. All stage-players, rope-dancers and fencers transgressing are to be incarcerated.

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— William Laud, Chancellor of the University and Archbishop of Canterbury, from his University Statutes of 1636

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Selected panorama

Credit: David Iliff

Oxford looking south from the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in the centre of the city – the spire on the left is Christ Church Cathedral and Tom Tower is on the right.

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