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The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, United Kingdom. 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. 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 main buildings of Jesus College are located in the centre of Oxford between Turl Street, Ship Street, Cornmarket and Market Street. Jesus College was founded in 1571 by Queen Elizabeth I, upon the petition of a Welsh clergyman, Hugh Price. The foundation charter gave to the college the land and buildings of White Hall, a defunct academic hall, to which new buildings were added. The first quadrangle, which included the hall, chapel, and principal's lodgings, was completed between 1621 and 1630; it has been described as "small and pretty" and possessing "a curious charm". Construction of the second quadrangle began in the 1630s and was completed in about 1712. Further buildings were erected in a third quadrangle during the 20th century, including science laboratories, a new library, and additional accommodation. The chapel was extensively altered in 1864; one historian of the college described the work as "ill-considered". The Fellows' Library, restored in 2007, contains 11,000 antiquarian books. A project to build new student and teaching rooms opposite the college was completed in 2010. Eleven parts of the college are listed buildings. (Full article...)

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Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. As of 2013, she is the only woman to have held either post. Born in Grantham in Lincolnshire, England, she read chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford and later trained as a barrister. She won a seat in the 1959 general election, as MP for Finchley. When Edward Heath formed a government in 1970, he appointed Thatcher Secretary of State for Education and Science. In 1975, she became leader of the Conservative Party. At the 1979 general election she became Britain's first female Prime Minister, determined to reverse what she perceived as a precipitate national decline. Amid a recession and high unemployment, Thatcher's popularity decreased, though economic recovery and the 1982 Falklands War brought a resurgence of support and she was re-elected in 1983 and in 1987. Her tough-talking rhetoric gained her the nickname the "Iron Lady". She resigned as Prime Minister in November 1990 after Michael Heseltine's challenge to her leadership of the Conservative Party. (more...)

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St Stephen's House is a theological college and one of the Permanent Private Halls (PPHs) of the University of Oxford. Unlike the colleges, which are run by their Fellows, PPHs are run by an outside institution – in the case of St Stephen's, the Church of England. It was founded in 1876 by Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln and one of the leading figures in the Tractarian movement, and became a PPH in 2003. It was originally located in the centre of Oxford on the site where the New Bodleian Library now stands, but moved soon afterwards to North Oxford. In 1980, it acquired a site in Iffley Road, East Oxford, that had been vacated by the Society of St. John the Evangelist. The current buildings contain the church of St John the Evangelist, designed by G F Bodley; accommodation is provided on site for married and single students. Part of the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England, it trains candidates for ordination and accepts other students for qualifications in Theology or Education. Alumni include David Hope (Archbishop of York), Glyn Simon (Archbishop of Wales), Jeffrey John (Dean of St Alban's) and Trevor Mwamba (Bishop of Botswana). (Full article...)

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Credit: Arnaud Malon

All Souls College, seen from the tower of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, was founded by King Henry VI in 1438. Uniquely at Oxford, the college does not have any students – only Fellows.

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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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Selected quotation

“

You will hear more good things on the outside of a stagecoach from London to Oxford than if you were to pass a twelvemonth with the undergraduates, or heads of colleges, of that famous university.

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— William Hazlitt

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