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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 university's position of Savilian Professor of Geometry was established in 1619. It was founded (at the same time as the Savilian Professorship of Astronomy) by Sir Henry Savile (pictured), a mathematician who was Warden of Merton College, reacting to what has been described as "the wretched state of mathematical studies in England" at that time. He appointed Henry Briggs as the first professor. There have been 19 geometry professors in all, with the most recent, Nigel Hitchin, appointed to the chair in 1997. Past professors include Edmond Halley, the astronomer, and Baden Powell, the father of the founder of the scout movement Robert Baden-Powell. Edward Titchmarsh (professor from 1931 to 1963) said when applying that he was not prepared to lecture on geometry, and the requirement was removed from the duties of the post to enable his appointment, although the title of the chair was not changed. The two Savilian chairs have been linked with professorial fellowships at New College since the late 19th century. Before then, for over 175 years until the middle of the 19th century, the geometry professors had an official residence adjoining the college in New College Lane. (Full article...)

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Thomas Jefferson Hogg (1792–1862) was a British barrister and writer best known for his friendship with the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. They became friends while studying at University College, Oxford, and remained close until Shelley's death. They collaborated on several literary projects at Oxford, culminating in their joint expulsion following the publication of one controversial treatise. Hogg became a barrister and met Jane Williams, who became his common law wife; they had two children together. The family settled in London, although Hogg's legal career meant that he often had to travel away from home. While living in London Hogg made the acquaintance of several well-known writers, and he published literary works of his own, including two entries on Greek literature in the Encyclopædia Britannica. His best-known work was The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, an unfinished biography of the poet, criticised for portraying him negatively. Hogg received an appointment to a government commission on municipal corporations and became a revising barrister. His legal career was moderately successful, but he was often frustrated by his failure to attain his goal of becoming a professor or judge. (more...)

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Somerville College (on Woodstock Road to the north of the city centre) was established as "Somerville Hall" in 1879 and took its present name in 1894. One of the first colleges for women at Oxford, it is named after Mary Somerville, a Scottish mathematician and astronomer who died in 1872. It was founded as a college "in which no distinction will be made between students on the ground of their belonging to different religious denominations", in contrast to Lady Margaret Hall which was an Anglican institution. In 1992, Somerville's statutes were amended to make it a mixed sex college; the first male fellows were appointed in 1993, with the first male students admitted in 1994. About half of the approximately 400 undergraduates and 90 postgraduates are men. Alumni include the politicians Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi and Shirley Williams, the novelists Vera Brittain, A. S. Byatt and Iris Murdoch, and the scientists Dorothy Hodgkin and Kay Davies. (Full article...)

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Credit: David Iliff

Established in 1870 as a memorial to the clergyman John Keble, a leading member of the Oxford Movement, Keble College (chapel pictured) remains distinctive for its neo-gothic red-brick buildings designed by William Butterfield.

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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 establishment of the Marshal Foch Professorship of French Literature at Oxford was announced a few days after Marshal Foch (pictured) signed the Armistice with Germany to end World War I?
... that British international rally driver Tony Ambrose was given an MG sports car by his father for winning a scholarship to Jesus College?
... that Bishop Graham Chadwick served as a naval intelligence officer in World War II and was expelled from South Africa for anti-apartheid activism?
... that Somerset cricketer Izzy Westbury made her senior international debut for the Netherlands aged 15?
... that it was speculated that J. K. Rowling based the Harry Potter character Albus Dumbledore on the "splendidly bearded" T. P. Wiseman, her classics professor at Exeter University?

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“

Oxford is on the whole more attractive than Cambridge to the ordinary visitor; and the traveller is therefore recommended to visit Cambridge first, or to omit it altogether if he cannot visit both.

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— Karl Baedeker

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Credit: David Iliff

A 360-degree view of the main quadrangle of Keble College. Designed by the 19th-century architect William Butterfield, the buildings have attracted considerable praise and criticism for their use of bricks in various colours and patterns, in contrast to the older stone-clad colleges elsewhere in the city.

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