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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 Astronomy was established in 1619. It was founded (at the same time as the Savilian Professorship of Geometry) by Sir Henry Savile, a mathematician and classical scholar who was Warden of Merton College and Provost of Eton College. He appointed John Bainbridge as the first professor. There have been 21 astronomy professors in all; Steven Balbus, the current professor, was appointed in September 2012. Past professors include Christopher Wren (1661–73) (pictured), architect of St Paul's Cathedral in London and the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford; he held the professorship at the time of his commission to rebuild the cathedral after it was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666. Three professors have been awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society: Charles Pritchard (1870–93), Harry Plaskett (1932–60) and Joseph Silk (1999–2012). The two Savilian chairs have been linked with professorial fellowships at New College since the late 19th century. The astronomy professor is a member of the Sub-Department of Astrophysics at Oxford. (Full article...)

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V. Gordon Childe (1892–1957) was an Australian archaeologist and philologist who specialized in the study of European prehistory. He wrote many influential books and was an early proponent of culture-historical archaeology and Marxist archaeology. He studied Classics at the University of Sydney and Classical archaeology at The Queen's College, Oxford, where his involvement with the socialist movement prevented him from working in academia on his return to Australia. Emigrating to London in 1921, he continued his research into European prehistory, introducing the concept of an archaeological culture into British archaeology. He was the Abercromby Professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh (1927–46), overseeing excavation of the unique Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae and the chambered tomb of Maeshowe, both in Orkney, Scotland. After serving as director of the Institute of Archaeology (1947–57), he returned to Australia and committed suicide. He is widely regarded as one of the most important archaeologists and prehistorians of his generation, and was renowned for his emphasis on revolutionary technological and economic developments in human society. (Full article...)

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Keble College was established in 1870 as a memorial to the Church of England clergyman John Keble, a leading member of the Oxford Movement that sought to emphasise the Catholic nature of the Church of England. The college is to the north of the city centre on Parks Road, opposite the University Museum of Natural History and the University Parks. The original buildings, designed by the architect William Butterfield, used bricks in an assortment of colours and patterns – a contrast with the traditional stone-clad colleges, and views on the merits of the design have varied. The college's alumni magazine is called The Brick. Women were first admitted in 1979, and there are now about 680 undergraduate and postgraduate students, making it one of the larger colleges. Keble owns the original of William Holman Hunt's painting The Light of the World, which is hung in the side chapel. Former students include the musician Thomas Armstrong, the journalist Andreas Whittam Smith and the cricketer Imran Khan, as well as many bishops, reflecting the long tradition of theological studies at Keble. (Full article...)

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Credit: Steve Cadman

A statue by Barbara Hepworth at St Catherine's College. Built in the 1960s to the design of the Danish architect Arne Jacobsen, the college's architecture has been highly praised.

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Did you know

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

... that John Rogers, who helped to prepare a version of the Hebrew Bible, also helped to introduce the man engine (double-acting man engine pictured), an important reform in Cornish mining?
... that editor Hedley Donovan was responsible for redirecting TIME from a conservative magazine to one "more toward the middle"?
... that Guido di Tella was an Argentine businessman, academic and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Relations between 1991 and 1999?
... that the 1673 history of Cheshire by Sir Peter Leycester questioned Amicia Mainwaring's legitimacy, leading to a "paper war" of 15 pamphlets with the Mainwaring family?
... that New Zealand Test cricketer Martin Donnelly also played rugby union for England?