Let it be known that you live in Oxford and you will find yourself subject to all kinds of assumptions - that you spend your afternoons punting on the river (summer) or eating crumpets by the fireside (winter), that your sitting room is oak-panelled, that your conversation, as the six o'clock sherry is poured, is in Latin....

While such things do occur in Oxford (some might say not nearly often enough), for many purposes it is a city like any other. This website is intended as a reference for anyone wanting to find their way around the facilities. We have tried to get a balance between giving enough detail to be practically useful, and not putting so much that it is impossible to see the wood for the trees. Any comments from readers (E-mail dailyinfo@dailyinfo.co.uk) will be most welcome.

Beginnings

As with so many great institutions, the origins of the University are hazy to say the least, but English scholars and teachers settled here between 1164 and 1169 when forbidden by Henry II to study at the University of Paris. It is characteristic of the Oxford approach that the University was not founded as such, but evolved, and continues to do so.

University College and Merton have the strongest claims to the distinction of greatest age. To this day they are kept apart at Matriculation ceremonies, as it is not unknown for more than one Dean to claim the right, as Dean of the oldest college represented, to make the address. Recent years have seen the establishment of three new graduate colleges: Wolfson, St Cross and Green Templeton (the last coming into existence in late 2008 through the merger of two existing colleges).

Town and Gown

The relationship between the University and the City has always been somewhat uneasy, and there has been much friction over the centuries. The most famous occasion was the St Scholastica's Day Riot of 1354, which began with a brawl in the Swyndlestock Tavern at Carfax. The townsmen rang the bell of Carfax Tower (then St Martin's Church) to summon armed reinforcements, whereupon the Chancellor of the University ordered the ringing of St Mary's bell and the scholars mustered with bows and arrows. In several days of fighting, sixty-three students were killed - a fact remembered for the following five centuries. From this time, every 10th February, the Mayor and sixty-three citizens were obliged to process to St Mary's, where they paid a fine of a penny each to the Vice Chancellor.

During the Civil War, Oxford was selected as the Royalist capital. The King stayed at Christ Church, the Queen at Merton, and a passage was constructed to allow them to meet. Most of the citizens were violently anti-Royalist, but not the University. Its allegiance to the Monarch was a drain on its resources, and it did not fare well under the Parliamentarians.

Since the late eighteenth century, however, Oxford has enjoyed an increasingly secure reputation as a centre of academic excellence, and its facilities for research, though somewhat haphazard, remain some of the best in the world.

The Present Day: Some Facts and Figures

According to Wikipedia (Feb 2009), 151,000 people live in Oxford - and according to Oxford University, this includes over 30,000 students (of both Universities). There is a school of thought among long-standing residents, who begin to find a remarkable number of familiar faces in the places they frequent, that these figures are a myth - that in fact the same 200 people are going round and round. It is also interesting to note that the largest tower block on Canary Wharf in the London Docklands contains working space for 60,000 workers - in other words, three such towers could take the entire population of the city, with spare space for nearly another 40,000 people! Oxford City Council states that 'Oxford is the sixth most visited city in the UK by international visitors...(attracting) approximately 9.3 million visitors per year', which may do something towards explaining the city's feeling of a larger fullness.

In the academic year 1997-98 at Oxford University alone, there were 10,788 undergraduates (of which 10,289 were reading for Honour Schools), 4,694 postgraduates and 463 visiting students plus others - that's 15,945 students in all.

Tim Lambert's Brief History of Oxford City adds a few more dates and facts to this short précis.

Page last updated Mar 2009