Portal:University of Oxford

Topics

Culture

Geography

Health

History

Mathematics

Nature

People

Philosophy

Religion

Society

Technology

The University of Oxford (informally "Oxford University" or "Oxford"), located in the English city of Oxford, is the oldest surviving university in the English-speaking world and is regarded as one of the world's leading academic institutions. Although the exact date of foundation remains unclear, there is evidence of teaching there as far back as the 11th century. 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 "ancient universities" have many common features and are sometimes collectively and colloquially referred to as "Oxbridge". For more than a century, Oxford has served as the home of the Rhodes Scholarship, which brings students from a number of countries to study at Oxford as postgraduates. (more about the university...)

The colleges of the university, of which there are 38, are autonomous self-governing institutions. All students and teaching staff belong to one of the colleges, or to one of the six Permanent Private Halls (religious foundations that admit students to study at Oxford). The colleges provide tutorials and classes for students, while the university provides lectures and laboratories, and sets the degree examinations. Most colleges accept undergraduate and postgraduate students, although some are for graduate students only; All Souls does not have students, only Fellows, while Harris Manchester is for students over the age of 21. All the colleges now admit both men and women: the last single-sex college, St Hilda's, began to admit men in 2008. The oldest colleges are University, Balliol, and Merton, established between 1249 and 1264, although there is dispute over when each began teaching. The most recent new foundation is Kellogg College, founded in 1990, while the most recent overall is Green Templeton College, formed in 2008 as the result of a merger of two existing colleges. (more about the colleges...)

Keble College

The Council of Keble College, Oxford ran the college (in conjunction with the Warden) from its foundation in 1868 until 1952. The council – a group of between nine and twelve men – has been described as "an external Council of ecclesiastical worthies", as most of the members came from outside the college, and many were not otherwise linked to the university. Keble was established by public subscription as a memorial to the clergyman John Keble. The first council members were drawn from the committee whose work had raised the money to build the college. By keeping matters relating to religion and the college's internal affairs in the hands of the council, the founders hoped to maintain Keble's religious position as "a bastion of 'orthodox' Anglican teaching" against the opponents of Tractarianism. In total, 54 men served on the Council, 11 of whom were college alumni; in 1903, Arthur Winnington-Ingram (Bishop of London) became the first former Keble student to join the council. It ceased to exist after 9 April 1952, when new statutes of the college placed full management in the hands of the Warden and Fellows. (Full article...)

Alec Douglas-Home (1903–1995) was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister from October 1963 to October 1964. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford (where he obtained a third-class degree in Modern History and played cricket for the university), he entered Parliament in 1931. He lost his seat in the 1945 election, regained it in 1950, but became a member of the House of Lords on the death of his father in 1951. Under the premierships of Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan he was appointed to a series of increasingly senior posts, including Leader of the House of Lords and Foreign Secretary. Home was chosen to succeed Macmillan in 1963, and renounced his earldom to do so. Home's premiership was the second briefest of the twentieth century. After narrow defeat in the general election of 1964, Douglas-Home resigned as party leader. From 1970 to 1974 he served in the cabinet of Edward Heath as Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. After the defeat of the Heath government in 1974 he returned to the House of Lords as a life peer, and retired from front-line politics. (more...)

Somerville College (on Woodstock Road to the north of the city centre) was established as "Somerville Hall" in 1879 and took its present name in 1894. One of the first colleges for women at Oxford, it is named after Mary Somerville, a Scottish mathematician and astronomer who died in 1872. It was founded as a college "in which no distinction will be made between students on the ground of their belonging to different religious denominations", in contrast to Lady Margaret Hall which was an Anglican institution. In 1992, Somerville's statutes were amended to make it a mixed sex college; the first male fellows were appointed in 1993, with the first male students admitted in 1994. About half of the approximately 400 undergraduates and 90 postgraduates are men. Alumni include the politicians Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi and Shirley Williams, the novelists Vera Brittain, A. S. Byatt and Iris Murdoch, and the scientists Dorothy Hodgkin and Kay Davies. (Full article...)

James Smithson (c. 1765 – 1829) studied at Pembroke College. He founded the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. in his will, but never visited America.

James Smithson (c. 1765 – 1829) studied at Pembroke College. He founded the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. in his will, but never visited America.

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

• ... that John Rogers, who helped to prepare a version of the Hebrew Bible, also helped to introduce the man engine (double-acting man engine pictured), an important reform in Cornish mining?
• ... that editor Hedley Donovan was responsible for redirecting TIME from a conservative magazine to one "more toward the middle"?
• ... that Guido di Tella was an Argentine businessman, academic and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Relations between 1991 and 1999?
• ... that the 1673 history of Cheshire by Sir Peter Leycester questioned Amicia Mainwaring's legitimacy, leading to a "paper war" of 15 pamphlets with the Mainwaring family?
• ... that New Zealand Test cricketer Martin Donnelly also played rugby union for England?

Some of the college boathouses on The Isis (as the River Thames is known in Oxford)

• What are portals?
• List of portals
• Featured portals