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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, some Oxford academics fled northeast to Cambridge, where, in 1209, they established 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 constituent colleges, consisting of 36 semi-autonomous 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 31 prime ministers of the United Kingdom and many heads of state and government around the world. As of October 2022,^[update] 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 position of Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford was founded in 1918 shortly after the end of the First World War. Ferdinand Foch, or "Marshal Foch" (pictured), was supreme commander of Allied forces from April 1918 onwards. The chair was endowed by an arms trader, Basil Zaharoff, in Foch's honour; he also endowed a post in English literature at the University of Paris in honour of the British general Earl Haig. Zaharoff wanted the University of Paris to have a right of veto over the appointment, but Oxford would not accept this. The compromise reached was that Paris should have a representative on the appointing committee (although this provision was later removed). In advance of the first election, Stéphen Pichon (the French Foreign Minister) unsuccessfully attempted to influence the decision. The first professor, Gustave Rudler, was appointed in 1920. As of 2014, the chair is held by Michael Sheringham, appointed in 2004. The position is held in conjunction with a fellowship of All Souls College. (Full article...)

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Sir Herbert Hope Risley (1851–1911) was a British ethnographer and colonial administrator, a member of the Indian Civil Service who conducted extensive studies on the tribes and castes of Bengal. He is notable for the formal application of the caste system to the entire Hindu population of India in the 1901 census, of which he was in charge. Risley was influential in the 20th century revival of the hierarchical varna system as a structure for social order in India. He was born in Buckinghamshire and attended New College, Oxford, prior to joining the Indian Civil Service. He was posted initially to Bengal where his professional duties engaged him in statistical and ethnographic research, and soon developed an interest in anthropology. His decision to indulge these interests curtailed his initial rapid advancement through the ranks of the Service, although he was later appointed Census Commissioner and, shortly before his death in 1911, became Permanent Secretary at the India Office in London. He emphasised the value of fieldwork and anthropometrical studies, in contrast to the reliance on old texts and folklore that had historically been the methodology of Indologists and which was still a significant approach in his lifetime. (more...)

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Trinity College, in the centre of Oxford on Broad Street alongside Balliol College, was established in 1555 by Sir Thomas Pope. It stands on the site of Durham College, founded in 1286 for monks from Durham Cathedral; the east range of Durham Quad, containing the Old Library, dates from 1421 and is the only major surviving building from Durham College. Pope, who had no surviving children, founded the college in the hope that he would be remembered in the prayers of its students; his remains are still encased beside the chapel altar. Trinity has four major quadrangles, a large lawn and gardens, but despite its size it is relatively small in student numbers, with about 300 undergraduates and 125 postgraduates. Alumni include the theologian John Henry Newman, the politician Pitt the Elder, the poet Laurence Binyon, Lord Goddard (Lord Chief Justice 1946–58), and the humorist Miles Kington. (Full article...)

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Credit: Godot13

The hall on the east side of the first quadrangle of Oriel College. The college was founded in 1324; the hall dates from the mid-17th century.

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Did you know

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

... that John Prideaux Lightfoot commissioned the Adoration of the Magi tapestry (detail pictured) from Morris & Co. for the Gothic revival chapel at Exeter College, but died before it was completed?
... that special trains were laid on for voters returning to Oxford for the 1860 election of the Boden Professor of Sanskrit?
... that William Morfill was the first professor of Russian in Britain?
...that a scathing obituary of British author Lord Michael Pratt in The Daily Telegraph called him "an unabashed snob and social interloper on a grand scale", who habitually outstayed his welcome?
... that one 16th-century Registrar of the University of Oxford was dismissed after neglecting his duties for a year, then imprisoned and fined after throwing a punch when the debate had ended?

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“

I saw the spires of Oxford
As I was passing by,
The grey spires of Oxford
Against a pearl-grey sky;
My heart was with the Oxford men
Who went abroad to die.

”

— Winifred Mary Letts, "The Spires of Oxford" (1916)

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Credit: Dbmag9

The main quadrangle of Worcester College; on the left are the medieval buildings known as "the cottages", the most substantial surviving part of Gloucester College, Worcester's predecessor on the same site.

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