Oxford

Oxford, city, administrative centre of Oxfordshire, south-central England, near the confluence of the Thames (known there as the Isis) and the Cherwell rivers. The city is the seat of the University of Oxford, one of the oldest and best-known universities in the world, and Oxford Brookes University (1992). The John Radcliffe Hospital is one of Britain’s leading teaching hospitals. Population 134,248 (2001).

Oxford is an industrial centre best known for vehicle manufacture at Cowley, printing and publishing, and for the provision of health services. Viscount Nuffield first began to manufacture motorcycles at Cowley in 1904 and cars a few years later. The cars that were manufactured there included the Morris Bullnose and the Morris Minor. The works are now a part of BMW. Several publishing firms are based at Oxford of which the Oxford University Press is the oldest and best known. More than 8 per cent of employed Oxford residents state their occupation as “teaching professional”.

Oxford University's colleges are not confined to a single campus but instead are interspersed throughout Oxford, and their historic buildings create an atmosphere that is unique to the city. There are more than 30 colleges in Oxford of which Balliol, Merton, and University College are the oldest, and Christ Church the largest. The heart of the city is Carfax (Latin, quadrifurcua, “four-forked”), from which the main streets run to the four points of the compass; this was also the centre of the walled medieval city. Among the city's many notable buildings are the churches of St Michael (11th century) and St Mary the Virgin (13th century); the 15th-century Bodleian Library; the semicircular Sheldonian Theatre (1664-1669), designed by Sir Christopher Wren; and the Radcliffe Camera (1749). There are several museums in Oxford of which the most ancient is the Ashmolean Museum (1683), which was the earliest British museum to be opened to the public. It houses the university's collections of fine and decorative arts, antiquities, and coins, as well as possessing a collection of Western European art. The Pitt Rivers Museum (1884) is a museum of ethnology and prehistory containing artefacts from around the world and from all historical periods. Other museums include the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Oxford, and The Oxford Story.

An early Saxon trading settlement was located near the fords across the rivers here. During the 10th and 11th centuries the town was attacked by Danes. By the 13th century, with the establishment of the university, it had become one of the most important educational centres in Europe. Charles I had Oxford as his capital from 1642 to 1645, during the English Civil War. The University gained international recognition in the 19th century, when several artistic and philosophical trends originated in Oxford, including the Pre-Raphaelite movement, the Aesthetic Movement of John Ruskin, and the Oxford Movement. The population of the city grew from 11,922 in 1801 to 49,285 in 1901. The University has allowed women to obtain degrees since 1920. The Oxford Institute of Technology was founded in 1955, to become Oxford Polytechnic in 1970 and Oxford Brookes University in 1992.