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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 first Honorary Fellows of Keble College, Oxford, were elected in 1931, when the college's governing body was given power to elect "distinguished persons" to this position. Under the current statutes of the college, Honorary Fellows cannot vote at meetings of the Governing Body and do not receive financial reward, but they receive "such other privileges as the Governing Body may determine." Those elected have included college alumni (for example, the Pakistan cricketer and politician Imran Khan, elected 1988), benefactors (for example Sir Anthony O'Reilly, elected 2002), and individuals of distinction without academic links to the college such as former U.S. President Ronald Reagan (pictured) (elected 1994) and the poet Sir John Betjeman (elected 1972). The three longest-serving Honorary Fellows are Sir John Forsdyke (Principal Librarian of the British Museum; appointed 1937, died 1979), Sir Thomas Armstrong (conductor; appointed 1955, died 1994) and Harry Carpenter (Warden of Keble, later Bishop of Oxford; appointed 1960, died 1993). (Full article...)

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Lilian Faithfull (1865–1952) was an English teacher, headmistress, women's rights advocate, magistrate, social worker and humanitarian. She was one of the "Steamboat ladies" who were part of the struggle for women to gain university education. She obtained a first-class degree in English from Somerville College, where she was the first captain of the women's hockey team and the college tennis champion. She later suggested that women who had competed for Oxford or Cambridge in intercollegiate sports should be awarded Blues, like their male counterparts, and this was implemented in 1891. From 1889 until 1894 she was a lecturer at Royal Holloway College and then joined King's College London, where she regarded her 13 years as vice-principal of the Ladies Department as the happiest of her career. She was principal of Cheltenham Ladies' College from 1907 until 1922. In 1920, she became Justice of the Peace for Cheltenham, becoming one of the first women magistrates in England. Faithfull started the organisation that is now Lilian Faithfull Homes in Cheltenham, and she spent the last few months of her life in the care of one of the homes. (Full article...)

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Pembroke College was founded in 1624 and named after William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, who was Chancellor of the University at the time. Pembroke's coat of arms contains the English rose and Scottish thistle to represent King James I, in whose reign the college was founded, and three lions rampant from the arms of the Earl of Pembroke. The college was established on the site of a university hostel for law students dating from the 15th century, called Broadgates Hall, with money provided by Thomas Tesdale (a merchant from Abingdon) and Richard Wightwick (a Berkshire clergyman). It is located just to the south of the city centre, opposite Christ Church. It has gradually expanded in size, with further buildings added in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. There are about 400 undergraduates and about 120 postgraduates. Alumni include the lexicographer Samuel Johnson (although he did not complete his degree because of lack of funds) and James Smithson (whose bequest founded the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.). J. R. R. Tolkien was a Fellow of Pembroke for twenty years, writing The Hobbit and the first two books of The Lord of the Rings during this time. Roger Bannister, the first man to run the mile in under four minutes, is a former Master of the college. (Full article...)

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Credit: Pointillist

The course of the Boat Race on the River Thames in London; Oxford and Cambridge first rowed against each other in 1829, and the Boat Race has been held annually since 1856 apart from the two World Wars.

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Did you know

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

... that economist Barbara Ward (pictured), an early advocate of sustainable development, was the first woman ever to address a synod of Roman Catholic bishops?
... that Sir Albert Napier was described as the "midwife to civil legal aid"?
... that academic Anastasios Christodoulou was named 'Anastasios' ('Resurrection') by his parents as he was born on Easter Day?
... that cricket writer Gerald Howat won the Cricket Society's Golden Jubilee award for his biography of Learie Constantine?
... that William Wroth founded the first independent chapel in Wales in 1639, after he refused to obey King Charles' instruction to allow sports to be played on Sundays?

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“

There is not a man who has passed through this great and famous University that can say with more truth than I can say that I love her, I love her, I love her from the bottom of my heart.

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— William Gladstone

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