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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 in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they established what became 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 thirty-nine semi-autonomous constituent colleges, four permanent private halls, 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.

It 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 30 prime ministers of the United Kingdom and many heads of state and government around the world. 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 Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford. It is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library. Known to Oxford scholars as "Bodley" or simply "the Bod", it is one of six legal deposit libraries under the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 for works published in the United Kingdom and under Irish Law it is entitled to request a copy of each book published in the Republic of Ireland. Though University members may borrow some books from dependent libraries (such as the Radcliffe Science Library), the Bodleian operates principally as a reference library and in general documents cannot be removed from the reading rooms. The Bodleian was established in 1602 by Thomas Bodley, who donated some of his own books. The library has expanded considerably since its foundation, and now houses 8 million items on 117 miles (188 km) of shelving. The buildings on the main site include Duke Humphrey's Library (completed 1488), the Radcliffe Camera, the Clarendon Building and the New Bodleian (designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and completed in 1940). (Full article...)

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Robert Madgwick (1905–1979) was an Australian educationist. Born in North Sydney, New South Wales, Madgwick trained as a schoolteacher before attaining degrees in economics and economic history from the University of Sydney and Balliol College, Oxford. Madgwick gained experience in adult education while working as a lecturer in Sydney's extension program, and he served during World War II as Director of the Australian Army Education Service, which provided adult education services to the Army's 250,000 members. After the war, he guided the New England University College to independence as the University of New England in 1954, becoming its first Vice-Chancellor and presiding over the school's expansion of its curriculum and facilities while promoting closer ties with the local community. Madgwick was an influential proponent of adult learning and extension studies in tertiary education. In recognition of his contributions to education, Madgwick was appointed to the Order of British Empire in 1962 and knighted in 1966. After his retirement, Madgwick served from 1967 to 1973 as Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. (Full article...)

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Wolfson College, in north Oxford on the banks of the River Cherwell, is a college for postgraduate students (about 600) and fellows. It was established in 1965 as Iffley College with grants from 12 other colleges, but it did not have any premises initially. The college was renamed in honour of Sir Isaac Wolfson, in recognition of his financial contribution to the construction of the college under its first President, Sir Isaiah Berlin. The main building, designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, was completed in 1974 and were given Grade II listed building status in 2011. There are three quadrangles: the central quadrangle (known as the Berlin Quad), the Tree Quad built around established trees, and the River Quad into which the Cherwell has been diverted to form a punt harbour. Unlike many other Oxford colleges, there is no separate High Table or Common Room for the fellows, and the students and fellows eat and associate together. Alumni include the astronomer Richard Ellis, the novelist Iain Pears and the mathematician Nigel Hitchin. (Full article...)

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Credit: David Smith

The quadrangle of Pembroke College, with Tom Tower of Christ Church behind. Pembroke was founded in 1624 and named after William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, the Chancellor of the University. J. R. R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and two books of the Lord of the Rings trilogy when he was a Fellow of the college.

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Did you know

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

... that Seymour King, Member of Parliament for Kingston upon Hull Central for 25 years, was the first climber to reach the summits of Mont Maudit and Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey (pictured)?
... that Andrew N. Meltzoff's research revealed that infants of only a few weeks of age can imitate facial expressions and hand gestures?
... that civil engineer Robert Wynne-Edwards was the first President of the Institution of Civil Engineers to be elected while still working as a contractor?
... that Irish cricketer and artist Robert Gregory was the subject of four poems by W. B. Yeats?
... that when a rival took over an estate belonging to Sir Walter Clarges, Clarges used his position as a Member of Parliament to send the interloper to jail?

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“

It could not be real, he thought. It was a fragile city spun out of dreams, so small that he could have held it on the palm of his hand and blown it away into silver mist. It was not real. He had dreamed of it for so long that now, when he looked down into the valley, the mist formed itself into and towards spires that would vanish under the sun the moment he shut his eyes... He shut his eyes, opened them, and the towers were still there.

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— Elizabeth Goudge, from Towers in the Mist

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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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