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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 Principal and Fellows of Jesus College form the college's governing body. The Principal must be "a person distinguished for literary or scientific attainments, or for services in the work of education in the University or elsewhere", and has "pre-eminence and authority over all members of the College and all persons connected therewith". The Principal's Lodgings (entrance pictured) are in the first quadrangle of the college. The current Principal, Lord Krebs, was appointed in 2005 and is the 30th holder of the office. Professorial Fellows are those Professors and Readers of the university who are allocated to the college. One of these professorships is the Jesus Professor of Celtic, which is the only chair in Celtic studies at an English university. Official Fellows are those who hold tutorial or administrative appointments in the college. Past Official Fellows include the composer and musicologist John Caldwell, the historians Sir Goronwy Edwards and Niall Ferguson, the philosopher Galen Strawson and the political philosopher John Gray. There are also Senior and Junior Research Fellows. Principals and Fellows who retire can be elected as Emeritus Fellows. The college can also elect "distinguished persons" to Honorary Fellowships. (Full article...)

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Edward VII (1841–1910) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death on 6 May 1910. He was the first British monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, later renamed the House of Windsor. His education included studies at Christ Church, Oxford and Trinity College, Cambridge. Before his accession to the throne, Edward held the title of Prince of Wales and was heir apparent to the throne for longer than anyone else in history. During the long widowhood of his mother, Queen Victoria, he was largely excluded from political power and came to personify the fashionable, leisured elite. The Edwardian period of his reign, named after him, heralded significant changes in technology and society, including powered flight and the rise of socialism and the Labour movement. He fostered good relations between Great Britain and other European countries, especially France, for which he was popularly called "Peacemaker", but his relationship with his nephew, Wilhelm II of Germany, was poor. Edward presciently suspected that Wilhelm would precipitate a war, and four years after Edward's death, World War I brought an end to the Edwardian way of life. (more...)

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Regent's Park College (colloquially "Regent's") is one of the Permanent Private Halls (PPHs) of the University of Oxford. Unlike the colleges, which are run by their Fellows, PPHs are run by an outside institution – in the case of Regent's, the Baptist Church. It started as the Stepney Academy in East London in 1810, created to teach Baptists at a time when only members of the Church of England could enter Oxford and Cambridge. It moved to Regent's Park in London in 1855, and took its current name, developing links with the University of London. H. Wheeler Robinson (Principal 1920–42) decided to move the college to Oxford, which he thought was a more congenial setting. A site was purchased in 1927 and fundraising for a new building began. The foundation stones were laid in 1938, and Regent's became a PPH in 1957. Women have been admitted since the 1920s. It has about 100 undergraduates and 90 postgraduates, including those training for Baptist ministry in the UK and abroad. Alumni include the Victorian general Sir Henry Havelock (active during the Indian Rebellion), the legal scholar Malcolm Evans, the theologian Jane Shaw and the Baptist missionary Donald Foster Hudson. (Full article...)

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Credit: Winky

A men's crew from Keble College training for Eights Week (the main inter-college rowing races). Rowing is a popular student sport at Oxford, even though most students will not have rowed before starting at Oxford.

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Did you know

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

... that Welsh politician David Lloyd George (pictured) said that he would prize no honour more highly than his Honorary Fellowship of Jesus College?
... that Thomas Johnes planted three million trees to make his Hafod Uchtryd estate picturesque?
... that the position of Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture at Oxford was endowed by John Ireland, who was Dean of Westminster for more than 25 years?
... that deforestation in Staffordshire inspired contributions from Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward to a book of poetry about Needwood Forest by Francis Mundy?
... that medieval scholar Erika Cheetham interpreted Nostradamus' writings as prophecies of Napoleon, Hitler, and the establishment of modern Israel?

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Selected quotation

“

You will hear more good things on the outside of a stagecoach from London to Oxford than if you were to pass a twelvemonth with the undergraduates, or heads of colleges, of that famous university.

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— William Hazlitt

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