Portal:University of Oxford

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The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. 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 thirty-nine semi-autonomous constituent colleges, four permanent private halls, 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.

It 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 election in 1860 for the position of Boden Professor of Sanskrit was a hotly contested affair between two rival candidates offering different approaches to Sanskrit scholarship: Monier Williams (pictured), an Oxford-educated Englishman, and Max Müller, a German-born lecturer specialising in comparative philology, the science of language. Both men battled for the votes of the electorate (the Convocation of the university) through manifestos and newspaper correspondence. The election came at a time of public debate about Britain's role in India particularly after the Indian Mutiny of 1857–58. Although generally regarded as the superior to Williams in scholarship, Müller had the double disadvantage (in the eyes of some) of being German and having liberal Christian views. At the end of the hard-fought campaign, Williams won by a majority of over 230 votes, and held the chair until his death in 1899. Müller, although deeply disappointed by his defeat, remained in Oxford for the rest of his career, but never taught Sanskrit there. (Full article...)

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Bernard Bosanquet (1877–1937) was an English cricketer. He is best-known for inventing the googly, a delivery designed to deceive the batsman. When bowled, it appears to be a leg break, but after pitching the ball turns in the opposite direction to that which is expected, behaving as an off break instead. Bosanquet played cricket for Eton College and whilst at Oriel College, Oxford. He played with moderate success as a batsman who bowled at fast-medium pace for Oxford University between 1898 and 1900. While playing a tabletop game, Bosanquet devised a new technique for delivering a ball, later christened the "googly", which he steadily practised during his time at Oxford. He then played first-class cricket for Middlesex. Having gone on several minor overseas tours, Bosanquet was selected in 1903 for the Marylebone Cricket Club tour of Australia. During that tour, he made his Test debut for England and although his batting was unsuccessful, he did well as a bowler and troubled all the opposing batsmen. He appeared in seven Test matches for England as an all-rounder. He was chosen as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1905. (more...)

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Keble College was established in 1870 as a memorial to the Church of England clergyman John Keble, a leading member of the Oxford Movement that sought to emphasise the Catholic nature of the Church of England. The college is to the north of the city centre on Parks Road, opposite the University Museum of Natural History and the University Parks. The original buildings, designed by the architect William Butterfield, used bricks in an assortment of colours and patterns – a contrast with the traditional stone-clad colleges, and views on the merits of the design have varied. The college's alumni magazine is called The Brick. Women were first admitted in 1979, and there are now about 680 undergraduate and postgraduate students, making it one of the larger colleges. Keble owns the original of William Holman Hunt's painting The Light of the World, which is hung in the side chapel. Former students include the musician Thomas Armstrong, the journalist Andreas Whittam Smith and the cricketer Imran Khan, as well as many bishops, reflecting the long tradition of theological studies at Keble. (Full article...)

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Credit: Motacilla

The minaret of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, a recognised independent centre of the university. The building, in east Oxford, mixes Islamic and Oxford-style architecture.

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Did you know

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

... that Kenelm Hubert Digby was the proposer of the notorious 1933 "King and Country" debate in the Oxford Union (debating chamber pictured)?
... that the Oxford University Ice Hockey Club claims to be the second oldest ice hockey team in the world?
... that Christopher Elrington, general editor of the Victoria County History, was a professor at the University of London even though he never taught there?
... that the position of Laudian Professor of Arabic was established at Oxford by William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury?
... that Gwilym Davies was the first person to broadcast in Welsh, on Saint David's Day in 1923?

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“

To the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College: they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.

”

— Edward Gibbon

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Credit: Kunal Mehta

The Old Building Quadrangle of Hertford College incorporates the lodge, library, chapel, hall, bursary and other administrative buildings. It is the only Hertford quadrangle to have a lawn in the centre, in the traditional college style.

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