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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, in 1209, they established 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 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 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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Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) often referred to as "Dr Johnson", was a British author who has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is also the subject of "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature": James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. Johnson attended Pembroke College, Oxford for just over a year, before his lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher he moved to London, where he began to write miscellaneous pieces for The Gentleman's Magazine. After nine years of work, Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755; it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship." In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland. Boswell's Life, along with other biographies, documented Johnson's behaviour and mannerisms in such detail that they have informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome, a condition not defined in the 18th century. (more...)

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St Hugh's College was established in 1886 as a college for women by Elizabeth Wordsworth, great-niece of the poet William Wordsworth. She used money inherited from her father, who had been Bishop of Lincoln, and named the college after St Hugh, a 13th-century Bishop of Lincoln. Men were first admitted in 1986. It is based in north Oxford, between Banbury Road on the east and Woodstock Road on the west, and has large grounds. There are about 370 undergraduates and 225 postgraduates; the college is able to house all undergraduates and many of the postgraduates in buildings on the main college site for the duration of their studies. Two large lawns are used by students all year round, and the gardens are also the venue for croquet and tennis. St Hugh's is the only Oxford college with its own basketball courts. Alumni include the politicians Barbara Castle and Theresa May, the Burmese activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the suffragette Emily Davison and the child-prodigy mathematician Ruth Lawrence. The Principal, appointed in 2007, is the Scottish lawyer Elish Angiolini. (Full article...)

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Credit: Godot13

The Codrington Library of All Souls College, named after Christopher Codrington and completed in 1751

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Did you know

Articles from Wik.ipedia.Pro's "Did You Know" archives about the university and people associated with it:

... that Harrison Oxley was the youngest cathedral organist in Britain when he became organist of St Edmundsbury Cathedral (pictured) at age 24?
... that the Rev. George W. Bridges libelled anti-slavery activists Escoffery and Lecesne when he said they wanted to "sheath their daggers in the breasts of their white inhabitants"?
... that Ian Harvey, a Conservative junior minister in the United Kingdom, resigned his seat in 1958 after a sex scandal?
... that English musician and poet Robert Wydow is the earliest known recipient of a Bachelor of Music degree from the university?
... that, after being defrocked as a Church of England priest, Harold Davidson became a seaside entertainer and was killed in 1937 by a lion when he trod on its tail?