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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 they established the University of Cambridge in 1209. 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 Registrar of the University of Oxford is one of the university's senior officials, acting (in the words of the university's statutes) as the "head of the central administrative services", with responsibility for "the management and professional development of their staff and for the development of other administrative support". The workload of the role, which has a 550-year history, has increased over time. In the 16th century, it was regarded as a lucrative position and one registrar reacted violently when the university voted to remove him from office for failing to carry out his duties for a year, leading to his temporary imprisonment. A commission headed by former Prime Minister H. H. Asquith recommended in 1922 that Oxford should improve its administration and that the registrar should become a more significant figure. As the historian Brian Harrison put it, Oxford's administration was "edging... slowly from decentralized amateurism towards centralized professionalism." The growth in Oxford's administration led to a move in 1968 to purpose-built accommodation in Wellington Square (pictured): until that time, the administration had been housed in the Clarendon Building in the centre of Oxford. About 4,000 of the university's staff of approximately 8,000 are under the Registrar's control. (Full article...)

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Richard Bellingham (c. 1592 – 1672) was a colonial magistrate, lawyer, and several-time governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the last surviving signatory of the colonial charter at his death. He studied law at Brasenose College and became a wealthy lawyer in Lincolnshire prior to his departure for the New World in 1634. He was a liberal political opponent of the moderate John Winthrop, arguing for expansive views on suffrage and lawmaking, but also religiously somewhat conservative, opposing the efforts of Quakers and Baptists to settle in the colony. He was one of the architects of the Massachusetts Body of Liberties, a document embodying many sentiments also found in the U.S. Bill of Rights. Although he was generally in the minority during his early years in the colony, he served ten years as colonial governor. Bellingham notably refused a direct order from King Charles II to appear in England, an action that may have contributed to the eventual revocation of the colonial charter in 1684. Bellingham is immortalized in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The New England Tragedies, both of which fictionalize events from colonial days. (Full article...)

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Jesus College was founded by Elizabeth I on 27 June 1571 at the request of Hugh Price, a leading Welsh clergyman. The college's oldest buildings date from the 16th and early 17th centuries, with additions or changes at intervals thereafter. The life of the college and its finances were disrupted by the English Civil War, but Leoline Jenkins, who became principal after the war in 1661, managed to put the college on a more stable financial footing. The 19th century saw a decline in numbers and academic standards, before reforms of the university led to removal of many of the restrictions placed on the college's fellowships and scholarships, such that the college ceased to be predominantly full of Welsh students and academics. The college is still informally associated with Wales, however. Students' academic achievements rose in the early 20th century as fellows were appointed to teach in new subjects. Women were first admitted in 1974 and now form a large part of the undergraduate population. There are about 475 students; the Principal of the college is Lord Krebs. Former students include Harold Wilson (who was twice British Prime Minister), Norman Manley (Chief Minister of Jamaica), T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"), Angus Buchanan (winner of the Victoria Cross) and Viscount Sankey (Lord Chancellor). (Full article...)

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Credit: Harshil Shah

The tower of Magdalen College seen from the University of Oxford Botanic Garden. Established in 1621 as a physic garden growing plants for medicinal research, it contains over 8,000 different plant species.

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Did you know

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

... that the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (pictured) was the site of a major debate in evolutionary biology?
... that despite being appointed to the usually profitable post of comptroller to Prince Charles in 1616, John Vaughan, 1st Earl of Carbery later claimed that serving the Prince had cost him £20,000?
... that Anglican clergyman Chad Varah founded the Samaritans, the world's first crisis hotline, in 1953, at a time when he was also writing for the Eagle comic?
... that British barrister Sir Tony Hetherington was the first head of the Crown Prosecution Service after it was founded in 1986?
... that the Welshmen Edward Edwards, Griffith Griffith, Owen Owen, Richard Richards, Robert Roberts and Thomas Thomas (and his son Thomas Thomas) were all educated at Jesus College?