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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 position of Laudian Professor of Arabic was established at Oxford in 1636 by William Laud (pictured), who at the time was Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Archbishop of Canterbury. The first professor was Edward Pococke, who was working as a chaplain in Aleppo in what is now Syria when Laud asked him to return to Oxford to take up the position. Laud's university regulations provided that the professor's lectures were to be attended by all medical students and bachelors of arts at the university, although this seems not to have happened since Pococke had few students. In 1881, a university statute provided that the professor was to lecture in "the Arabic, Syriac, and Chaldee Languages", and attached the professorship to a fellowship at St John's College. Successive professors had few students until after the Second World War, when numbers increased because of the reputation of Sir Hamilton Gibb and because some British students became interested in Arabic culture while serving in the Middle East during the war. Julia Bray, the Laudian Professor as of 2015, was appointed in 2012 and is the first woman to hold the position. (Full article...)

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Jake Seamer (1913–2006) was an amateur cricketer who played for Oxford University and Somerset either side of the Second World War. A bespectacled cricketer, Seamer was a right-handed batsman who played with a defensive streak to his game which was rarely seen among amateur batsmen of his time. He was described as a leg break googly bowler, but in truth he rarely bowled at all, and claimed just four first-class wickets. Seamer played the best of his cricket while at Brasenose College, Oxford. All four of his first-class centuries were made for the university side, and his average for Oxford was 35.30, significantly higher than his career average of 20.35. He made his highest score against Free Foresters in his second year, during which he accrued 858 runs, more than double he managed in any other season. On completion of his studies at Oxford, Seamer joined the Sudan Political Service, which limited his first-class cricket appearances to periods of leave. He was named as one of three amateurs to captain Somerset in 1948, leading the team during June and July. That season was his last for Somerset, and he made only one further first-class appearance. He became a district commissioner in the Sudan, and after leaving the service, he taught at Marlborough College and was twice mayor of Marlborough. (more...)

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St Hilda's College was established in 1893 for women, and was the last single-sex college at Oxford: men were admitted for the first time in 2008. It was founded by Dorothea Beale, who was also a headmistress at Cheltenham Ladies' College. Located in Cowley Place alongside the River Cherwell, it is the most easterly of the university's colleges. It is named after the Anglo-Saxon saint Hilda of Whitby. The buildings include the Jacqueline Du Pré Music Building, named after the cellist who was an honorary fellow of St Hilda's. Opening in 1995, it was the first purpose-built concert hall to be built in Oxford since the Holywell Music Room in 1742. There are about 420 undergraduates and 150 postgraduates at St Hilda's: former students include the literary critic Helen Gardner, the writers Susanna Clarke and Barbara Pym, the historian Bettany Hughes and the politician Gillian Shephard. The Principal is Sir Gordon Duff, appointed in 2014. The college featured in the 2002 documentary series College Girls, which followed students from 1998 to 2001. (Full article...)

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Credit: David Iliff

Construction of the chapel of Wadham College began soon after the college was founded in 1610 and it was consecrated on 29 April 1613. The stained glass of the east window was added in 1622.

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Did you know

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

... that Charles Ranken (pictured) and Lord Randolph Churchill founded the Oxford University Chess Club in April 1869, with Ranken becoming its first president?
... that John Verney became a Member of Parliament to gain contacts to help him in his career as a barrister?
... that W. G. Collingwood, John Ruskin's secretary and assistant, was a noted scholar of Norse history and art?
... that Rabbi Asher Lopatin supported a Chicago ban on foie gras on the grounds that the Torah prohibits cruelty to animals, noting that "chopped liver is good, but foie gras is bad"?
... that Alexander Wilkinson managed to play 74 more first-class cricket matches despite an injured hand that almost had to be amputated after World War I?

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Well, take a man connected with the legislative class, directly by birth and indirectly by opportunities, give him at least enough taste not to be ashamed of poetry, give him also enough energy not to be ashamed of football, and add a profound satisfaction with Oxford in general and Balliol in particular, and there you are.

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— Compton Mackenzie, Sinister Street (1914) – the speaker is describing the "essential Balliol"

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