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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. Traditionally, each of Oxford's constituent colleges is associated with another of the colleges in the University of Cambridge, with the only exceptional addition of Trinity College, Dublin. It does not have a main campus, and 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 buildings of Nuffield College are to the west of Oxford's city centre, on the former site of the largely disused basin of the Oxford Canal. Nuffield College was founded in 1937 after a donation to the University of Oxford by the car manufacturer Lord Nuffield. The initial designs of the architect Austen Harrison, which were heavily influenced by Mediterranean architecture, were rejected by Nuffield, who described them as "un-English". Harrison then aimed for "something on the lines of Cotswold domestic architecture", as Nuffield wanted. The college was built to the revised plans between 1949 and 1960. During construction, the tower, about 150 feet (46 m) tall, was redesigned to hold the college's library. Reaction to the architecture has been largely unfavourable. It has been described as "Oxford's biggest monument to barren reaction" and "a hodge-podge from the start". However, the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner thought that the tower helped the Oxford skyline and predicted that it would "one day be loved". The writer Simon Jenkins doubted Pevsner's prediction, though, saying that "vegetation" was the "best hope" for the tower, and for the rest of the college too. (Full article...)

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Bernard Bosanquet (1877–1937) was an English cricketer. He is best-known for inventing the googly, a delivery designed to deceive the batsman. When bowled, it appears to be a leg break, but after pitching the ball turns in the opposite direction to that which is expected, behaving as an off break instead. Bosanquet played cricket for Eton College and whilst at Oriel College, Oxford. He played with moderate success as a batsman who bowled at fast-medium pace for Oxford University between 1898 and 1900. While playing a tabletop game, Bosanquet devised a new technique for delivering a ball, later christened the "googly", which he steadily practised during his time at Oxford. He then played first-class cricket for Middlesex. Having gone on several minor overseas tours, Bosanquet was selected in 1903 for the Marylebone Cricket Club tour of Australia. During that tour, he made his Test debut for England and although his batting was unsuccessful, he did well as a bowler and troubled all the opposing batsmen. He appeared in seven Test matches for England as an all-rounder. He was chosen as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1905. (more...)

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Wadham College, in the centre of the city on Parks Road, was founded in 1610 by Dorothy Wadham, using money that her husband Nicholas had bequeathed for the establishment of an Oxford college. The main quadrangle was designed by William Arnold and constructed between 1610 and 1613, and includes a statue of King James I (in whose reign the college was founded). The hall, one of the largest in Oxford, has a hammer-beam roof and Jacobean woodwork. The grounds include large gardens, the Holywell Music Room, dating from 1748, and more modern buildings used for accommodation and teaching. The original rules that no women were to enter the premises apart from a laundress who was "above suspicion" were gradually relaxed, and women were admitted as students in 1974. The college traditionally has a left-wing ethos. Alumni include the conductor Thomas Beecham, the poet Cecil Day-Lewis, the politician Michael Foot and Rowan Williams, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury. (Full article...)

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Credit: Shimgray

The top of the Radcliffe Observatory, which was the university's astronomical observatory from 1773 until 1934. The building is now part of Green Templeton 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 the Australian lamington cake (pictured) is believed to have been named after Charles Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington, the then-Governor of Queensland?
... that William Havard, who was bishop of two Welsh dioceses (St Asaph, then St David's), once represented Wales in an international rugby union match?
... that Robert Gentilis graduated from Oxford aged 12 and became a Fellow of All Souls College aged 17, below the minimum fellowship age of 18?
... that cricketer Roger Kimpton also won an Oxford University tennis tournament and a golf blue, and was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross as a Second World War fighter pilot?
... that when scholar Spencer Barrett’s tax return was challenged, he showed that to understand a text of Pindar he had to know how Mount Etna had appeared to a passing sailor?

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“

Gentlemen do not take soup at luncheon.

”

— Lord Curzon, Chancellor of the University, commenting upon the meal proposed to follow the award of an honorary degree to Queen Mary in 1921.

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Credit: Chensiyuan

An aerial view of Oxford, looking north. Merton College is at the bottom centre with Christ Church to the left (west). On the right-hand side lies University of Oxford Botanic Garden and, beyond that, Magdalen College.

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