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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 1874 FA Cup Final was played between Oxford University A.F.C. and Royal Engineers A.F.C. on 14 March 1874 at Kennington Oval in London. It was the third final of the world's oldest football competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup (known in the modern era as the FA Cup). Both teams had previously reached the final but been defeated by Wanderers F.C. The Engineers had reached the final with comparative ease, scoring sixteen goals and conceding only one in the four previous rounds. Oxford's opponents in the earlier rounds had included two-time former winners Wanderers. The final was decided by two goals from Oxford in the first twenty minutes. Their opponents had spent two weeks training for the match, an innovative concept at the time, but were repeatedly thwarted by Charles Nepean, the Oxford goalkeeper. The Engineers were said to have missed their best back, Lieut. Alfred Goodwyn, who had been posted overseas. The 1874 final was the only occasion upon which Oxford University won the FA Cup; the team made further appearances in the 1877 and 1880 finals, but lost on both occasions. (Full article...)

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The title page of a 1634 version of Hues' Tractatus de globis in the collection of the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal

Robert Hues (1553–1632) was an English mathematician and geographer. He graduated from St Mary Hall, Oxford, in 1578 before making observations of the variations of the compass off the coast of Newfoundland. He later travelled with Thomas Cavendish on a circumnavigation of the globe, taking the opportunity to measure latitudes. In 1589, Hues went on the Earl of Cumberland's raiding expedition to the Azores to capture Spanish galleons. On a further circumnavigation, Hues made astronomical observations while in the South Atlantic, and also observed the variation of the compass there and at the Equator. In 1594, Hues published his discoveries in Tractatus de globis et eorum usu (Treatise on Globes and their Use) which was written to encourage English sailors to use practical astronomical navigation. He became a servant of Thomas Grey, 15th Baron Grey de Wilton, staying with him when Grey was imprisoned in the Tower of London for participating in the Bye Plot. Following Grey's death in 1614, Hues attended upon Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, when he was confined in the Tower. He died in Oxford in 1632 and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral. (more...)

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Regent's Park College (colloquially "Regent's") is 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 Regent's, the Baptist Church. It started as the Stepney Academy in East London in 1810, created to teach Baptists at a time when only members of the Church of England could enter Oxford and Cambridge. It moved to Regent's Park in London in 1855, and took its current name, developing links with the University of London. H. Wheeler Robinson (Principal 1920–42) decided to move the college to Oxford, which he thought was a more congenial setting. A site was purchased in 1927 and fundraising for a new building began. The foundation stones were laid in 1938, and Regent's became a PPH in 1957. Women have been admitted since the 1920s. It has about 100 undergraduates and 90 postgraduates, including those training for Baptist ministry in the UK and abroad. Alumni include the Victorian general Sir Henry Havelock (active during the Indian Rebellion), the legal scholar Malcolm Evans, the theologian Jane Shaw and the Baptist missionary Donald Foster Hudson. (Full article...)