Talk:List of presidents of the Oxford Union

Useless Page Needs Improvement

This page is virtually useless. We need a year-by-year list: name, term of office, date of birth, star sign, favourite colour ... all that stuff. --OhNoPeedyPeebles (talk) 21:30, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

• Quite concur, have started a list on the lines of the Tab equivalent. In reality, it would need someone to nip into the President's Office, where there are some very good histories etc. which would give us the list in a trice. 79.73.87.25 (talk) 21:09, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

• • I don't think it is helpful to describe this page as useless - it is a start, and in the best traditions of Wikipedia it needs to be improved as someone has started to do. Let's help to improve, not just criticise !

• • I have filled in all of the terms/years for all Presidents of the Oxford Union Society using multiple books from the Library including Hollis' history, the proceedings and the list of members included alongside the Rules of the Society. This list can now be considered complete. Hughbellamy (talk) 17:54, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Notability

When listing past Presidents, do they have to fulfil a notability criterion ? It seems to me that a complete list is intrinsically useful. Non-notables can just be a name without a link to a page of their own. We should re-instate as-yet non-notable past Presidents, like Luke Tryl

The subject matter is notable. If the individual is not by themselves, they should be included on this list, but not have their own article. Mkdw^talk 21:03, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Causes of Death

The page is inconsistent in recording causes of death. Either everyone's cause of death should be recorded (alcoholism, smoking, run over by bus etc) or no one's. Being killed in a world war isn't useful information in this context.--OhNoPeedyPeebles (talk) 18:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I dare say sooner or later somebody will strike it out for the reason you give. It's interesting, though - particularly the "lost generation" - some of them probably the brightest and best of their age group - wiped out as the young officers of WW1. Harold Macmillan famously declined to return to Oxford to complete his degree (and perhaps become a rather old President like Tony Crosland did after WW2) because he couldn't bear the thought of being haunted by memories of his dead friends.

Perhaps somebody should start an article on "Oxford University Deaths in the Two World Wars" and move the information there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.192.0.10 (talk) 10:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Returning to this old comment (the above anonymous comment was me at my then place of work in 2009), Simon Ball in "The Guardsmen" comments that of the Oxford undergrads who matriculated between 1910 and 1914, around 29% were killed in WW1 (for Cambridge the figure was around 26%). This article lists 13 Presidents in the 1910-14 period, of whom 4 were killed, ie. just over 30% (and 1 out of the 3 in 1909-10 was killed also). Allowing for a bit of statistical margin of error in a tiny sample, that is pretty consistent and obviously greatly exceeds the death ratios for the general public, unless you take small samples of men who joined Pals Battalions and all got wiped out together on the First Day of the Somme. By contrast, Oxford Union Presidents, or Oxford graduates in general, are, one assumes, no more likely than anybody else to die from alcoholism, smoking or being run over by a bus.Paulturtle (talk) 23:58, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Some very rough back-of-a-fag-packet estimates ... According to the British Army in WW1 page, the British Army received 2.6m volunteers up to 1916, then 2.3m conscripts thereafter. Allowing also for the small regular army of 1914 that suggests that around 5.5m men served in the British Army in WW1 (the Army peaked in size at around 3.8m, of whom just under 2m were on the Western Front at any one time, about half of them combatants). There were about 0.7m British deaths, so perhaps 12% of those who served in the Army were killed. And that's just men who were actually in the Army - lots of men would have done other things, eg Royal Navy, reserved occupations - from 1917 lots of men were diverted into agriculture, shipbuilding, ship crewing etc. Of course some men would have died at sea but the percentage of British men of relevant age killed in the war must have been well under 10%, and obviously far less than the 25-30% of Oxbridge undergraduates, and Oxford Union Presidents, killed.Paulturtle (talk) 00:22, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Presidents of the Oxford Union Society

Is there a reason why para 1 and 2 - both named the same - are not combined into one table? I'm combining it into one table - feel free to revert me if this is not ok Xyzspaniel (talk) 22:08, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Phillimore

Is the R.C. Swinnerton listed twice as President in the 1890s really John Swinnerton Phillimore, as this link (https://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/biography/?id=WH2088&type=P) would suggest? (He was a Christ Church man).Cleisthenes2 (talk) 10:57, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

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John/James Galbraith

The list had an entry for "John Galbraith" in 1892; I suspect this is an error for James Galbraith, later MP for East Surrey, whose Who's Who entry has him down as President. It does not state what year, but if he was born in 1872 then 1892 would be about right, and the colleges match. He's also the only Galbraith anywhere on the list. (Unfortunately, the only contemporary news reports I can find mentioning the election simply call him "Mr Galbraith".) Andrew Gray (talk) 18:14, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

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Size of College arms

The College arms are barely legible. In order to use them as information, they need to be bigger.
(I have intentionally not centred the entries in the first table, as it's tidier without.) Ehrenkater (talk) 17:57, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

President for TT24

I believe it is worth settling the question of who will be president in TT24. I have nothing but respect for the rules of the Union - however, all tertiary sources, such as this Oxford Student article, states "...at which point it will be offered to the incoming Librarian, Louis Wilson, under Rule 12(c)(ii)." I am willing to accept he will become president once a tertiary source provides this. Alextheconservative (talk) 21:38, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Word Ciaralovescats (talk) 21:39, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

The news articles cited are definitely not tertiary sources (see WP:TERTIARY). See also WP:NEWSORG for the general reliability of news sources, but suffice it to say that it doesn't appear that the cited articles (Cherwell and The Oxford Student) are particularly editorially stringent, let alone so punctilious as to be categorised as a tertiary source by any stretch of that term. What you mean is that you want a secondary source to confirm this rather than relying on the inevitable conclusion on the plain text of the Union's rules. There is no real policy against this (compare with WP:SYNTH, which I don't believe applies here).

The point you have made in your edit summaries is that the Office of President-Elect has been declared vacant. This may well be true, but that is not relevant to the question of who will be president in TT24. The rules are clear that Louis Wilson will become the President. You don't need a secondary (tertiary) source to confirm what the Union's rules already say. The cited articles even give the exact rule which states that Wilson will become President in TT24.

(Edited to add: The cited articles even say that Wilson will become president in TT24 unequivocally)Keelan • Talk | Contribs 23:24, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Good evening,

I apologise for my error in identifying whether sources are secondary or tertiary. However, my point still stands. I am acting here in my capacity as a Wikipedia editor. What you say is most likely true with regards to who will actually succeed to the office when looking at the Oxford Union's rules. But, this is not saying what has happened in this specific event, nor what will happen. From Wikipedia's perspective, this only states what is supposed to happen (see, for example, Chad Wolf's appointment - constitutionally, he should not have been appointed, but Wikipedia treated him as the legitimate Homeland Security Secretary until the SC ruled otherwise). As the secondary sources lay out ("...will remain vacant until the end of Hilary term, at which point it will be offered to the incoming Librarian, Louis Wilson, under Rule 12(c)(ii)", "Oxford Union’s Appellate Board declared that the Office of President-Elect is vacant until the end of Hilary Term, after which it will be offered to the incoming Librarian for Trinity 2024...") - this may indeed change, but at present the secondary sources suggest only that they will be offered to the Librarian-Elect, not that he is mandated to succeed to the presidency. Alextheconservative (talk) 01:24, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I have no real strong feelings either way but I think the distinction of the role being currently held vacant means that, regardless of whether we know who will get it or not, we should leave it as vacant until it is actually filled. Either way, as long as the accompanying note is kept for context, I think it doesn't make that much of a difference. Gazamp (talk) 01:28, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

TT24 contextual note

Thought it would be worth having a bit of a discussion about the note on the TT24 entry which lays out the whole to-do around the various tribunals, especially as Clubpenguin458 has replaced it in their recent edits. My personal view is that its important to keep a summary of the information since it was quite a long-winded process with several people declared president-elect at one point or another (and since it was covered fairly consistently in the various student papers); I do think it could maybe be shortened, but not quite sure how so open to suggestions on that one. Second opinions very much welcome! Thanks, Gazamp (talk) 12:40, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

@Gazamp I'm of the opinion that, when the person who takes office differs from the election result, it should be noted and explained - I'm wary, though, of including too much detail given the BLP guidelines and general notably. Alextheconservative (talk) 17:58, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

@Alextheconservative: do you think this is a good level of detail:

Leo Buckley was initially declared President-Elect, but an election tribunal disqualified him for electoral malpractice and declared Julia Maranhao-Wong elected. Buckley appealed and in January 2024, it was reported that the position was vacant pending a tribunal. In February 2024 it was decided that the role of President-Elect should be left vacant and that the presidency would be offered to the incoming Librarian Louis Wilson.

Feel free to cut out any info you think is unnecessary. Thanks, Gazamp (talk) 20:27, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I think that's a good level of detail. Perhaps combine the second and third sentences, as it's unclear in the source whether the position actually was vacant at the time.

Thanks, Alextheconservative (talk) 10:38, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Have added it back to page after merging those sentences, obviously feel free to change it if you think it's unclear. Thanks, Gazamp (talk) 15:25, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

References