Timeline of Oxford

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The following is a timeline of the history of the city, University and colleges of Oxford, England.

Prior to 13th century

• By 727 – Dida of Eynsham establishes a nunnery with Frideswide, perhaps his daughter, as abbess.^[1]
• 912 – First mention of Oxford, as Oxnaforda, under the authority of Edward the Elder, King of Wessex (according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle).^[2]
• 979 – Vikings burn Oxford.^[3]
• 1002 – 13 November: St. Brice's Day massacre of Vikings: Monastery of St Frideswide destroyed.

• 1009 – 1 August: Vikings burn Oxford.^[4]
• 1015 – Early: Sigeferth and Morcar, chief thegns of the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw, come to an assembly in Oxford where they are murdered by Eadric Streona.
• 1018 – Cnut the Great attends a Witenagemot at Oxford at which he is recognised as king of England.^[5]
• 1022 – Witenagemot held at Oxford to translate the laws of England into Latin and apply them equally within England and the Danelaw.^[6]
• 1026 – Witenagemot held at Oxford.^[6]
• 1036 – Council of Oxford (a Witenagemot) declares Harold Harefoot regent of England for his half-brother Harthacanute.^[4]

• c.1040–50 – Tower of St Michael at the North Gate completed.
• 1071–73 – Oxford Castle erected as a motte-and-bailey by Norman baron Robert D'Oyly.^[7] In 1074, St George's tower is built in stone.
• 1074 – First stone of St Mary Magdalen's Church, built by D'Oyly, is laid.^[8]
• c.1085 – First stone bridge over the River Thames at Grandpont (modern-day Folly Bridge) is built by D'Oyly.
• 1088 – Parliament held at Oxford by William II of England.^[6]
• 1096 – Academic teaching at Oxford is recorded.^[9]
• 1122 – Priory of St Frideswide established.
• 1129 – Osney Abbey established as a priory by Robert D'Oyly the younger.
• c.1130–60 – Nave and chancel of St Peter-in-the-East built.^[10]
• 1131 – Godstow nunnery established.
• 1133 – Easter: King Henry I is in residence at his new Beaumont Palace.^[11]

• 1136 – Parliament held at Oxford by the new king Stephen, attended by Theobald of Bec.
• 1139
  • Parliament held at Oxford.^[12]
  • Temple Cowley founded by Matilda of Boulogne for the Knights Templar.^[13]
• 1141 – 24 June: The Anarchy: Empress Matilda is forced to flee from Westminster to Oxford.^[4]
• 1142 – The Anarchy
  • 26 September: Stephen, King of England, captures Oxford and besieges Matilda inside the castle.^[4]
  • December: Matilda escapes from Oxford Castle across the snow in a white cape for camouflage.^[11][14]

• c.1160–1180 – St Mary the Virgin, Iffley built.
• 1167 – Increased enrolment at Oxford after English students are barred from attending the University of Paris.^[4]
• 1177
  • May: Council of Oxford on governance of Ireland.
  • Jewish cemetery.
• 1185 – Parliament held at Beaumont Palace by Henry II.^[12]
• 1190
  • First known foreign scholar commences study at Oxford, Emo of Friesland.
  • Major fire.^[12]
• By 1191 – Burgesses are using the first known corporate town seal in England.^[16]
• 1194 – St Mary Magdalen's Church rebuilt by Bishop Hugh of Lincoln.^[8]

13th century

• 1205
  • Council held at Oxford by King John who also spends Christmas here.^[17]
  • Approximate date: First known Mayor of Oxford.
• 1209 – Dissatisfied students from Oxford found the University of Cambridge.^[4]
• 1213 – 15 November: A council of knights is held in Oxford.^[18]
• 1214 – 20 June: Papal ordinance defines the rights of the scholars at the University of Oxford.^[4] By 1216 a Chancellor of the University is in office.^[16]
• 1215 – 16–23 July: A council of the barons charged with enforcing Magna Carta meets with King John in Oxford.^[19]
• c.1220 – Osney Abbey constructs a conduit for fresh water from North Hinksey.^[17]
• 1221 – 15 August: The Dominican Order founds Blackfriars.^[4]
• 1222 – 17 April: Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, opens a council at Osney Abbey.
• 1224 – c. October: Franciscans found the first Greyfriars in Oxford. By c.1229 Robert Grosseteste is teaching theology to the order here.^[4]
• By c.1230 – Broad Street laid out beyond the city wall as Horsemonger Street.^[20]
• Between c.1236 & 1272 – St Edmund Hall established, "the oldest surviving academic society to house and educate undergraduates in any university."^[21]
• 1238 – Students attack the papal legate's retinue.^[17]
• 1249 – Spring: Bequest of William of Durham for the support of scholars, used for establishment of University College.^[18]
• By 1252 – University Congregation meeting in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin.
• 1253 – University buys property which will form Aula Universitatis, University College.
• 1258
  • 12 June: Provisions of Oxford enacted by a parliament meeting at the Dominican Friary in St. Ebbes, creating an elected Council of barons to advise King Henry III^[4] (abandoned 1261).
  • 27 October–4 November: Oxford Parliament meets, with Peter de Montfort presiding.
• 1263
  • Early May: Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, newly returned from exile, summons a meeting of rebel barons at Oxford, leading to the outbreak of the Second Barons' War. Soon afterwards, the King occupies the town and holds a council here.^[17]
  • Town and gown riots.^[22]
  • Presumed date: Balliol College is founded in the University by John I de Balliol on its modern-day site.^[23] Its first statutes are sealed on 22 August 1282 by his widow, Dervorguilla of Galloway, who in 1284 also conveys the freehold of its site.^[24]
• 1264
  • February: Student riots.^[17]
  • 12 March: Henry III suspends teaching in the University until Michaelmas as he is making the city his military headquarters at the outbreak of the Second Barons' War.^[22]
  • 14 September: Walter de Merton formally completes the foundation of the House of Scholars of Merton, later Merton College in the University.^[18]
• 1268 – Ascension Day: Riots against Jews.
• 1274
  • January: Student riots between northerners and southerners.^[25]
  • Merton College receives its statutes, the first English university college to do so.^[4]
• 1276 – Merton College is first recorded as having a collection of books, making its Library the world's oldest in continuous daily use.^[26]
• 1280 – University College receives statutes.^[4]
• 1281 – December: Rewley Abbey dedicated.^[27]
• 1282 – Hart Hall established in the University.
• 1283 – Gloucester College is founded in the University for Benedictines of Gloucester Abbey.^[27]
• c.1291 – Durham College is founded in the University for Benedictines from Durham.^[16]
• 1292 – Guildhall.

14th century

• By 1300 – The philosopher Duns Scotus is studying in Oxford.
• 1310 – Mob Quad, the first purpose-built accommodation for students, completed in Merton College.
• 1314 – 4 April: Exeter College is founded in the University by Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter.^[27]
• 1317 – St Edmund Hall first recorded under this name in the University.^[21]
• 1318 – John Deydras, pretender to the English throne, claims Beaumont Palace.^[28]

• c.1320
  • Original University Convocation House added to University Church of St Mary the Virgin.
  • Tackley's Inn built in the University.
• 1324 – 24 April: Oriel College is founded in the University by Adam de Brome in honour of the Virgin Mary.
• 1326
  • 21 January: Oriel College chartered.^[27]
  • 2 October: Invasion of England: Isabella of France reaches Oxford.
• 1327
  • 1 February: First record of mayor of Oxford serving the monarch at a coronation feast.^[29]
  • 27 August: Death of Thomas Cobham, Bishop of Worcester. His books are bequeathed to the University where they are installed in a room above Convocation House in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, forming the University's first library.
• 1333 – November: Following violence between northern and southern masters, a group of the former from Brasenose and Merton migrates to Stamford, Lincolnshire, and attempts to set up a university there. In August 1334, the Chancellor of Oxford obtains a royal writ to suppress it, and it is closed in summer 1335.^[22]
• 1341 – 18 January: The Queen's College is founded in the University by Robert de Eglesfield in the name of Philippa of Hainault.
• 1348 – November: Black Death reaches Oxford, continuing until June 1349.^[17]
• 1355 – 10 February: St Scholastica Day riot breaks out, leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days.^[4]
• 1362 – Canterbury College is founded in the University by Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury for monks of Christ Church Priory, Canterbury and secular priests of the province of Canterbury.^[27]
• 1373 – Merton College Library is built.
• 1379 – 30 June: New College is founded in the University by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, as "The College of St Mary of Winchester in Oxford".
• 1381 – John Wycliffe prohibited from teaching in the University for heresy.
• 1386 – 14 April: First scholars enter New College, the first college in the University to adopt the quadrangle model and to provide extensively for undergraduate education^[16] and also the first with an entrance tower.
• 1396 – Construction of bell tower at New College begins, the first recorded use of building stone from Headington Quarry.^[20]

15th century

• 1410 – University students forbidden to lodge with townspeople.^[30]
• 1427 – 13 October: Lincoln College is founded in the University by Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, for his secular clergy.^[27]
• 1435 – St Mary's College is founded in the University for Augustinians.
• 1437 – St Bernard's College is founded in the University for Cistercians.
• 1438 – 10 February: All Souls' College is founded in the University by Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, and King Henry VI as a graduate institution.^[4]
• 1458 – 15 July: Magdalen College is founded in the University by William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor of England.^[31]
• By 1476 – New Inn Hall rebuilt and first known under this name.^[17]
• 1478
  • Severe outbreak of plague.^[17]
  • Chapel and cloister of Magdalen College completed by architect William Orchard.^[4]
  • 17 December: First book printed in Oxford.^[32]
• 1480 – Magdalen College School established by William Waynflete.^[33][34]
• 1485–1487 – Outbreaks of plague or epidemics in each of these years.^[17]
• 1486 – Magdalen College provides places for commoners (fee-paying students).^[30]
• 1488 – The University's Divinity School with Duke Humfrey's Library on the upper floor is completed.^[35]
• 1490 – Construction begins on the tower of Magdalen College.^[4] John Colet receives his M.A. from the college.

16th century

• 1509
  • Magdalen Tower completed.
  • 19 June: Brasenose College is founded in the University by Sir Richard Sutton (lawyer) of Prestbury, Cheshire, and the Bishop of Lincoln, William Smyth, for secular clergy.^[27]
• 1510 – Visit of King Henry VIII.^[36]
• 1517
  • 12 March: Corpus Christi College is founded in the University by Richard Foxe.^[18]
  • A third epidemic of sweating sickness hits Oxford and Cambridge.
• 1523 – Visit of King Henry VIII.^[36]
• 1525 – July: Cardinal Wolsey founds Cardinal College in the University on the site of the suppressed Priory of St Frideswide.^[4] Work is suspended on his downfall in 1529.
• 1530 – Gill's ironmongers opens; it remains in business in the city until 2010.^[37]
• 1532 – July: Cardinal College, suppressed in 1531, is refounded as King Henry VIII’s College, an ecclesiastical foundation.
• 1534 – 3 November–18 December: The Reformation Parliament passes the Act of Supremacy establishing Henry VIII as supreme head of the Church of England.^[18] All colleges and similar institutions are obliged to acknowledge this; the master and fellows of Balliol College do so only under protest.^[24]
• 1535 – First appointment to the chair of Regius Professor of Divinity founded by Henry VIII: Richard Smyth.
• 1536
  • Dissolution of the Monasteries and other religious institutions: Rewley Abbey dissolved.
  • First cornmarket erected in Northgate Street.^[20]
• 1538 – Dissolution of the Monasteries: Greyfriars dissolved.^[16]
• 1539 – Dissolution of the Monasteries: Gloucester College, Osney Abbey and Godstow nunnery (17 November) dissolved.
• 1540 – Dissolution of the Monasteries: St Mary's College dissolved.^[16]
• 1542 – Diocese of Oxford created. In September, Osney Abbey becomes the seat of the new Bishop of Oxford, the last abbot, Robert King, becoming the first bishop. This gives the town of Oxford city status. The see is transferred to King Henry VIII’s College in June 1544.
• 1546
  • November: Christ Church refounded as a college by Henry VIII under this name. Christ Church Cathedral School is also founded, for the education of boy choristers.
  • Regius Professorship of Hebrew founded by Henry VIII.

• 1548 – March: Florentine evangelical reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli is appointed Regius Professor of Divinity in place of Richard Smyth. He is forced to flee the city in September 1553.^[38]
• 1555
  • 1 May: St John's College founded by merchant Sir Thomas White on the site of St Bernard's College to teach Catholic theology.
  • 30 May: Trinity College founded by court official and landowner Sir Thomas Pope on the site of Durham College to teach Catholic theology.
  • 16 October: Two of the Oxford Martyrs, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, are burned at the stake in Broad Street following trial in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. Cranmer perhaps watches from a bastion of the city wall.
• 1556 – 21 March: The third of the Oxford martyrs, Thomas Cranmer, deposed Archbishop of Canterbury, is burned at the stake for treason^[18] having professed his faith at St Mary's.
• 1566 – 31 August–6 September: Visit of Queen Elizabeth. On 2 September at a performance of Richard Edwardes' play Palamon and Arcite before her the stage collapses causing three deaths, but the show goes on and "the Queen laughed heartily thereat".^[39]
• 1571 – 27 June: Establishment of Jesus College "within the City and University of Oxford of Queen Elizabeth's foundation" on the site of White Hall by Welsh cleric and lawyer Hugh Price, the first college established as an Anglican institution at its foundation.^[16]
• 1577 – 6 July: "Black Assize" results in an outbreak of epidemic typhus killing around 300 in the city.^[40] Rowland Jenkins, an Oxford stationer, is condemned to have his ears cut off for distributing Popish books.^[27]
• 1580 – 6 April: Dover Straits earthquake felt in Oxford.^[4]
• 1581
  • Undergraduates are required to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican Church.^[27]
  • 27 June: Copies of Edmund Campion's Decem Rationes, arguments against the validity of the Anglican Church, printed clandestinely at Stonor Park, are found on the benches of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin.^[27]
• 1582 – February: Meleager, a Latin play on the mythological figure of Meleager by "Gulielmus Gagerus" (William Gager), is performed by members of Christ Church.
• 1583 – 11 June: Rivales, another Latin play by Gager, is acted by members of Christ Church; it is criticised for its "filth". The following day they present another, Dido.^[41]
• 1586 – Oxford University Press is recognised by decree of the Star Chamber.^[42]
• 1588 – Balliol College is granted a royal charter.^[24]
• 1589 – 5 July: Catholic priests George Nichols and Richard Yaxley, together with two helpers, are hanged, having been arrested for celebrating mass at the Catherine Wheel inn.^[27]
• 1592 – 22–28 September: Visit of Queen Elizabeth.^[43] On 26 September members of Christ Church revive William Gager's 1583 Latin play Rivales before her.
• 1598 – Thomas Bodley refounds the University library.^[18]

17th century

• 1602 – 8 November: Bodleian Library opens.^[4]
• 1604 – Sir Thomas Crompton becomes the first member to sit for the newly created Oxford University constituency in the Parliament of England.
• 1605
  • c. March: Catholic conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot meet at the Catherine Wheel inn.^[27]
  • 27–30 August: Visit of King James I, Queen Anne, and their son Prince Henry to the University. Gentlemen from St John's and Christ Church entertain them with a series of plays. The big hit of the visit is Samuel Daniel's The Queen's Arcadia; Matthew Gwinne's Latin play Vertumnus puts James to sleep.
• 1610
  • Sir Thomas Bodley makes an agreement with the Stationers' Company of London to put a copy of every book registered with them into the new Bodleian Library.^[44]
  • 20 December: Wadham College is founded in the University by Dorothy Wadham on the site of the college of Trinitarian Friars.^[27]
• 1612 – Jacob Barnet, a Jew, is imprisoned by the University for changing his mind about converting to Christianity; he is later exiled.^[45]
• 1617 – Carfax Conduit completed.^[17]
• c.1617 – University’s Old Schools Quadrangle completed.
• 1619 – Henry Savile founds the Savilian Professorships in Astronomy and in Geometry.
• 1621 – The University of Oxford Botanic Garden, the oldest botanical garden in the British Isles, is founded as a physic garden by Henry Danvers, 1st Earl of Danby.^[46]
• 1624 – Pembroke College is founded in the University on the site of Broadgates Hall, originally to support scholars from Abingdon School.
• 1625 – c. August: Court and Parliament temporarily move to Oxford because of bubonic plague in London.^[18]
• 1630 – The Mitre Hotel (in The High) in business.
• 1635
  • October: Canterbury Quadrangle at St John's College, the first example of Italian Renaissance architecture in Oxford (begun 26 July 1631), is completed at the expense of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury.^[47]
  • New charter issued to the city.
• 1636
  • Late August: Visit of King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria.
  • A "great charter" to the University establishes Oxford University Press as the second of the privileged presses.^[48]
• 1637 – New University Convocation House completed; the Bodleian Library’s Selden End is built on the upper floor.
• 1642 – 29 October: King Charles I enters Oxford and establishes his court here.^[4] Physician William Harvey is among them.
• 1643 – January: Royalist newspaper Mercurius Aulicus begins weekly publication in Oxford.
• 1644
  • January: Charles I opens the Royalist 'Oxford Parliament'.^[4]
  • 28 May–4 June: First Siege of Oxford by Parliamentarian troops in the English Civil War, ending with the departure of Charles I and his son. The original cornmarket is dismantled for the lead in its roof.^[20]
  • 6 October: Major fire, resulting from a soldier attempting to roast a stolen pig.^[49]
• 1645
  • March: Prince Rupert leaves Oxford for Bristol.
  • 19 May–4 June: Second Siege of Oxford by Parliamentarian troops.
  • 5 November: Charles I returns to Oxford to overwinter with his troops.
• 1646
  • 27 April: Charles I flees Oxford in disguise.
  • 2 May: Third Siege of Oxford begins.
  • 20 June: Surrender of the Royalist garrison at Oxford to General Thomas Fairfax's Parliamentary New Model Army signed at Christ Church. On 22 June Princes Rupert and Maurice leave the city and on 24 June the main force marches out, ending the First English Civil War.^[50]
• 1649–1660 – The semi-formal Oxford Philosophical Club of natural philosophers meets; it is a predecessor of the Royal Society of London.
• 1649 – 18 September: Two Leveller private soldiers are shot near Gloucester Green for their part in a second mutiny of the New Model Army's Oxford garrison.^[51]

• 1650
  • Oliver Cromwell appointed University Chancellor.
  • The Eagle and Child pub (in St Giles') in business.^[52]
  • 14 December – Anne Greene is hanged at Oxford Castle for infanticide, having concealed an illegitimate stillbirth. The following day she revives in the dissection room and, being pardoned, lives until 1665.^[53][54]
• 1651 – First coffee house in England is opened in the vicinity of Queen's Lane^[4] by Jacob, a Lebanese Jew.
• By 1656 – Baptist meeting established.
• 1659 – Robert Boyle with the assistance of Robert Hooke, having constructed an improved "Pneumatical Engine" or air pump at his residence in Oxford (where Boyle lives from 1655 to 1668), begins a series of experiments on the properties of air.^[55][56]
• 1665
  • 21 September: Consecration of new chapel at Pembroke College, Christopher Wren's first completed work of architecture.
  • 9 October: The Cavalier Parliament assembles in Convocation House to avoid the Plague in London.^[18]
  • 7 November: The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, begins publication as The Oxford Gazette.
• 1667 – Henry Howard donates the first of the Arundel marbles to the University.^[57]
• 1669 – 9 July: Sheldonian Theatre, designed by Christopher Wren for University ceremonial and to accommodate the University Press, opens.^[18]
• 1674 – Oxford Almanack first published by Oxford University Press for the University.^[16]
• 1676 – New College bridge over Queen's Lane built.^[58]
• 1677 – Elias Ashmole gifts the collection that begins the Ashmolean Museum to the University. It includes a stuffed dodo from the Musaeum Tradescantianum in London.
• 1681 – 21–28 March: Oxford Parliament meets in Convocation House.
• 1681–1682 – Tom Tower at Christ Church built to a design by Christopher Wren.
• 1683 – 6 June: The Ashmolean Museum opens in Broad Street as the world's first university museum,^[59] including accommodation for the teaching of natural philosophy and a chemistry laboratory. Naturalist Dr. Robert Plot is the first keeper and first professor of chemistry.
• 1687 – 4 September: King James II tries to expel the Fellows of Magdalen College for refusing to Catholicise their institution.^[4] Anti-Catholic riots ensue.^[27]
• 1694 – 12 April: Dedication of the chapel at Trinity College, designed by Henry Aldrich with advice from Christopher Wren, the first Baroque college chapel.^[16]
• 1699 – Greek College is founded in the University for study of the Greek Orthodox Church, but lasts only until 1705.

18th century

• 1700 – 8 March: Spire of All Saints Church in The High collapses. The body of the church is rebuilt 1706–1708.^[58]
• 1705 – Edmond Halley, Professor of Geometry, installed in his observatory in New College Lane, identifies the orbit of the comet which will be named after him.^[60]
• 1706–1711 – Peckwater Quadrangle at Christ Church is built^[61] on the site of Vine Hall and Peckwater's Inn.
• 1708 – 14 July: Joseph Trapp becomes first Oxford Professor of Poetry.^[62]
• 1711–1715 – Clarendon Building, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, built for Oxford University Press.
• 1714
  • 29 July: Worcester College, is founded in the University under the will of Sir Thomas Cookes of Worcestershire on the site of Gloucester Hall.
  • 1 December: Funeral of Dr John Radcliffe in Oxford.
• 1715 – 28–29 May: Riots in support of Jacobitism, partly directed against Dissenters.^[16]
• 1716 – All Souls' College begins construction of its North Quad and Codrington Library, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor.
• 1718 – The Alfred Jewel, a work of Anglo-Saxon art, is given to the Ashmolean Museum.
• 1720 – Spire of All Saints Church in The High rebuilt.^[16]
• c.1721 – First New Road Baptist chapel built.^[63]
• 1722 – Turl Street gate in city wall demolished.^[20]
• 1729 – Charles Wesley and his brother John set up the Holy Club, origin of Methodism, with fellow students.^[64]
• 1733
  • July: George Frideric Handel performs a series of concerts in the Sheldonian Theatre including the première of his oratorio Athalia.
  • New Buildings at Magdalen College begun.^[58]
• 1737 – Radcliffe Camera construction begins.^[4]
• 1738 – Boswells of Oxford department store begins business as a luggage manufacturer and retailer.
• 1740 – November: Hertford College, is founded in the University for the first time.^[16]
• 1748
  • February–April: Student riots in support of Jacobitism.
  • Holywell Music Room, the first purpose-built concert hall in Europe, is opened.^[65]
• 1749 – 12 April: The Radcliffe Camera, designed by James Gibbs, is opened as a library under the bequest of Dr. John Radcliffe (d. 1714).^[66]

• 1751 – Guildhall replaced by Town Hall, including a cornmarket.
• 1752 – 6 April: Mary Blandy is hanged at Oxford Castle for patricide, the last female hanging in Oxford.^[67]
• 1753 – 5 May: Jackson's Oxford Journal begins publication.
• 1765 – 12 June: The death of General John Guise activates his 1760 bequest of a large collection of Old Master paintings to his alma mater, Christ Church, where they are assembled in 1767 as the foundation of Christ Church Picture Gallery.^[68]
• 1769 – Oxford standard text of the King James Bible, edited by Benjamin Blayney, first published.^[69]
• 1770 – 18 October: Radcliffe Infirmary admits its first patients.^[16]
• 1771 – 28 March: Mileways Act provides for major improvements to the city streets. East Gate, North Gate and Bocardo Prison demolished.^[70]
• 1772 – February: Floods cause partial collapse of Magdalen Bridge over the Cherwell.^[71]
• 1773–1783 – Canterbury Quadrangle at Christ Church is built to the design of James Wyatt at the expense of Richard Robinson, 1st Baron Rokeby and Archbishop of Armagh.^[72]
• 1773 – Summer: Radcliffe Observatory instruments delivered. Construction of the buildings, begun at the end of June 1772, is not completed (to the design of James Wyatt) until c.1797.^[66]
• 1774 – 1 November: Covered Market opened.
• 1776 – February: Precious metal objects are stolen from the old Ashmolean Museum by a Frenchman known as Le Maitre, perhaps Jean-Paul Marat.^[73]
• 1778 – Magdalen Bridge, rebuilt by John Gwynn of Shrewsbury, reopens to traffic.^[71]
• 1779 – 7 April: "Friar Bacon's study" at Folly Bridge sold for demolition.^[74]
• 1782 – Morrells take a partnership in the Lion Brewery (founded in 1743 by Richard Tawney).^[75]
• 1783 – 4 July: John Wesley preaches for the first time in the Methodist meeting house in New Inn Hall Street.^[76]
• 1784 – 4 October: James Sadler makes the first hot air balloon flight in England, from Oxford to Woodeaton.^[16]
• 1787 – Original Carfax Conduit replaced; moved in 1789 to Nuneham House.^[17]
• 1790
  • 1 January: The Oxford Canal is opened throughout from Coventry to a new basin in Oxford.^[4]
  • End: Osney Lock and cut on the Thames, built by convict labour, is opened.^[74]
• 1791 – 8 July: Joseph Haydn is awarded an honorary doctorate of music. He probably conducts his Symphony No. 92 in the Sheldonian Theatre as part of the ceremonials.^[77]
• 1794 – Under threat of the French Revolutionary Wars, a meeting at the Star Inn leads to formation of the County Fencible Cavalry, predecessor of the Oxfordshire Yeomanry and Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars.^[16]
• 1795 – St Ignatius church built in St Clement's,^[16] the city's first new Roman Catholic church since the Reformation.^[27]

19th century

• 1800 – New University examination statute establishes rigorous written examinations in mathematics and Literae Humaniores.^[2]
• 1806 – Sir Roger Newdigate founds the University’s Newdigate Prize for English Poetry.
• 1811 – 25 March: The University expels Percy Bysshe Shelley after he and Thomas Jefferson Hogg refuse to answer questions about The Necessity of Atheism, a pamphlet they wrote.^[78]
• 1812 – William Carter opens the ironmongers that becomes Eagle Ironworks.^[79]
• 1814 – 14 June: Banquet in Radcliffe Camera for The Prince Regent, Tsar Alexander of Russia and King Frederick William III of Prussia.
• 1815
  • Summer: First Eights Week.^[80]
  • Daniel Evans establishes the building contractor which will become known by the name of his son-in-law, Symm. Their first contract is for construction of a new Wesleyan Methodist chapel in New Inn Hall Street.^[81]
• 1818 – Oxford gas company established with riverside works in St. Ebbes.^[82]
• 1823 – Oxford Union established by students as the Oxford United Debating Society.
• 1825–c. June 1827 – New Folly Bridge built.
• 1825–1830 – New Oxford University Press building in Walton Street built.
• 1826 – July: Warneford Hospital opened as Oxford Lunatic Asylum.^[16]
• 1827 – 4 June: The University Match (cricket) is first played between Oxford University Cricket Club and Cambridge at Lord's; a draw.
• 1828–1837 – Beaumont Street laid out.^[58]
• 1828 – New St Clement 's Church built on a new site.^[58]
• 1829
  • 10 June: The Boat Race 1829 – The newly established Oxford University Boat Club wins the first inter-university Boat Race,^[83] rowed at Henley-on-Thames.^[84]
  • Oxford University Police established.^[85]
• 1832 – 24 June–28 November: Cholera outbreak.^[86]
• 1833 – 14 July: John Keble preaches an Assize sermon on "National Apostasy" at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, launching the Oxford Movement within the Church of England.^[87]
• 1835
  • c. April: The Elliston & Cavell partnership is formed as a drapers' stores.
  • 9 September: Municipal Corporations Act removes jurisdiction of University over tradespeople.
• 1836
  • 8 February: Commencement of Hampden Controversy: Prime Minister Lord Melbourne's appointment of Renn Dickson Hampden (a supporter of toleration for Dissenters) as Regius Professor of Divinity in the University splits the Church of England into high church and liberal factions.^[88]
  • St Clement's brought within city boundary.^[89]
  • First New Theatre in George Street opened, the city's first purpose-built theatre.^[16]
• 1839 – Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society founded as the Society for Promoting the Study of Gothic Architecture.

• 1841
  • 6 June (Sunday): Marian Hughes becomes the first woman to take religious vows in communion with the Anglican Province of Canterbury since the Reformation, making them privately to E. B. Pusey in Oxford.^[90]
  • June: Visit of Queen Victoria.^[17]
  • Oxfordshire County Hall built.
• 1842 – February: J. H. Newman, Anglican vicar of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin since 1828, withdraws to Littlemore and establishes a semi-monastic community, "the house of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Littlemore".
• 1843 – Protestant Martyrs' Memorial erected.^[91]
• By 1844 – Jewish community served by a rabbi.^[92]
• 1844 – 12 June: Great Western Railway opens its branch from Didcot to a terminus in Grandpont.^[93] Residential development of New Hinksey follows.^[89]
• 1845 – April–August: The University opens the Taylor Institution for the study of European languages and the adjacent new Ashmolean Museum building as the University Galleries.
• 1846 – County Pauper Lunatic Asylum established at Littlemore.
• 1847–1849 – Holywell, Osney and St Sepulchre's cemeteries opened.
• 1849
  • August–October: Cholera outbreak.^[86]
  • c. September–October: Painter John Everett Millais visits Oxford and meets the University printer Thomas Combe who becomes a patron of the Pre-Raphaelites.^[94]
• 1850
  • June–November: Millais again visits and works in the city.
  • 27 September: Folly Bridge freed of tolls.^[95]
  • The University establishes an Honour School (i.e. an undergraduate course) in Natural Science.
• 1851 – 20 May: The London and North Western Railway begins services to Rewley Road station.^[93]
• 1852
  • 1 October: Great Western Railway opens a new through Oxford railway station on its modern-day site.^[93]
  • December: Severe flooding.^[96]
• 1853–1855 – Park Town built, the first significant planned residential development in North Oxford.^[58]
• 1853
  • Enclosure of Cowley Field encourages residential development in the south-east.^[89]
  • Matthew Arnold's poem The Scholar Gypsy is written.
  • 'Cuthbert Bede, M.A.' (Edward Bradley)'s novel The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green is published.
• 1854
  • Whit Sunday: Thomas Chamberlain, vicar of St Thomas the Martyr's Church, controversially wears a chasuble for celebration of the Eucharist.
  • 1 June: Free public library opened.^[97]
  • August: The University Reform Act of 1854 reforms the University, opening it to undergraduates outside the Church of England by abolishing the requirement to undergo a religious test or take the Oath of Supremacy.^[98]
  • September: Cholera outbreak^[86] combined with smallpox.
  • Corporation waterworks established at South Hinksey.^[82]
• 1856
  • 15 March: The Boat Race 1856, first of the annual series rowed between Cambridge and Oxford University Boat Clubs on the River Thames tideway in London; Cambridge wins.
  • St John's College begins residential development of its North Oxford estates on Walton Manor.^[58]
• c.1857–Spring 1858 – Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Pre-Raphaelite friends paint the Oxford Union murals.
• 1858 – Salter Bros. set up as boatbuilders and hirers at Folly Bridge.^[99]

• 1860
  • 30 June: Evolution debate at the new University Museum.
  • St John's College begins residential development of its Norham Manor estate in North Oxford.^[58]
• 1862
  • 4 July: Charles Dodgson ('Lewis Carroll') takes Alice Liddell and her sisters on a rowing trip on The Isis from Folly Bridge to Godstow on which he tells the story that becomes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (published 3 years later, with the first copies printed in Oxford).^[100][101]
  • The Oxford Times founded.
• 1863
  • 24 March: Last public hanging at Oxford Castle.^[102][103]
  • St Edward's School founded.
• 1864
  • Randolph Hotel opened.
  • Summer Fields School opened as a boys' preparatory school.
• 1865
  • Local board of health established.
  • Oxford School of Art, the ancestor of Oxford Brookes University, begins to function located in the Taylor Institution.^[104]
  • December: Matthew Arnold's poem Thyrsis, with its reference to the "dreaming spires" of Oxford, is written.
• 1866
  • The Society of St. John the Evangelist ("Cowley Fathers") is founded by Richard Meux Benson at Cowley, the first stable Anglican religious order for men in England since the Reformation.^[105]
  • The Meadow Building at Christ Church is completed.
• 1867 – November–December: Town and gown and bread riots.^[17]
• 1868
  • University Delegacy of Non-Collegiate Students founded to offer university education without the costs of college membership.
  • Police Act establishes a unified city police force with effect from 1 January 1869.

• 1869
  • 27 August: Oxford University Boat Club wins the first international boat race held on the Thames against Harvard University.^[83]
  • Oxford University Rugby Football Club founded.
  • St Barnabas Church, Jericho, designed by Arthur Blomfield for Thomas Combe, consecrated.
• 1870
  • 23 June: Keble College, opens, the first new college in the University for more than a century.
  • Volunteer city fire brigade established.^[17]
  • Oxford University Gazette first published.
  • Eustreptospondylus oxoniensis juvenile dinosaur fossil found in Summertown.^[106][107]
• 1871
  • 18 June: The Universities Tests Act removes restrictions which limited access to the ancient universities to members of the Church of England.
  • Ruskin School of Drawing established.^[16]
  • First issue of Oxford and Cambridge college stamps for postage by Keble College.^[108]
• 1872
  • 10 February: First of The Varsity Matches in rugby union played against Cambridge in The Parks; Oxford wins.^[109]
  • Oxford University A.F.C. established.
  • University's Clarendon Laboratory completed as the oldest purpose-built physics laboratory in England.
  • Oxford Cooperative & Industrial Society established with retail premises in in George Street.^[16]
• 1873–1880 – First city sewerage system laid, with pumping station at Littlemore.^[17]
• 1874
  • Hertford College re-founded by merger of Hart Hall and Magdalen Hall.^[16]
  • Frank Cooper's Oxford marmalade first produced by his wife Sarah.^[110]
  • John Ruskin recruits a group of "diggers" from University undergraduates to repair the road to North Hinksey, including Oscar Wilde, Alfred Milner, Hardwicke Rawnsley, W. G. Collingwood and Arnold Toynbee.^[111][112]
• 1875
  • Church of St Aloysius Gonzaga established by Jesuits in Woodstock Road, designed by Joseph Hansom.
  • 3 November: Oxford High School opened by Girls' Day School Trust.
• 1876
  • 7 June: Cowley Barracks opened. The 52nd (Oxfordshire) Light Infantry Regiment is among the forces first stationed here.^[113]
  • St Stephen's House established as a Church of England theological college by supporters of the Oxford Movement.
• 1877
  • 24 March: For the only time in history, the Boat Race with Cambridge is declared a "dead heat" (i.e. a draw).
  • 10 August: The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Act removes most restrictions limiting fellowships in colleges of the universities to clergy of the Church of England and permits fellows to marry.
  • Wycliffe Hall founded as a Church of England theological college.
  • First house built in New Marston.^[114]
  • Dragon School founded as the Preparatory School.
  • First telephone in Oxford.^[115]
• 1878
  • 26 September: First Oxford University Extension Lecture delivered, in Birmingham.
  • October: Wesley Memorial Church opened in New Inn Hall Street.^[16]

• 1879
  • 1 January: B. H. Blackwell opens the first Blackwell's bookshop.^[116]
  • 13 March: Gerard Manley Hopkins, at this time a curate at the new Church of St Aloysius Gonzaga, writes the poem "Binsey Poplars", marking their felling.^[117]
  • 13 October: First women students admitted to study for degrees of the University, at the new Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville Hall and with the Society of Oxford Home-Students.^[4]
  • New General Post Office built in St Aldate's.^[118]
• 1881
  • 18 January: Severe gale.
  • 1 December: City of Oxford Tramways Company opens its first route.
  • City of Oxford High School for Boys opened.
• 1882
  • 13 May: University Examination Schools, designed by T. G. Jackson, completed.^[16]
  • Approximate date: Oxford City F.C. established.
• 1884
  • 1 February: First fascicle of what will become the Oxford English Dictionary is published.^[83] This summer the editor, James Murray, moves to a house on the Banbury Road to work full-time on the project.
  • 14 October: Indian Institute opened.^[119]
  • Pitt Rivers Museum established by donation of Augustus Pitt Rivers' anthropological and archaeological collections to the University.
  • Pusey House established to promote high church learning and worship.
• 1885
  • 29 April: Women first permitted to the take the University entrance examination.^[83]
  • 2 December: Osney Bridge collapses with one fatality.^[120]
• 1886
  • St Hugh's College founded by Elizabeth Wordsworth for women of limited means.
  • Mansfield College, a nonconformist institution, moves to Oxford from Birmingham and adopts this name.
  • Gasworks Bridge built.^[82]
• 1887 – Balliol College absorbs New Inn Hall.^[121]
• 1888 – 31 December: Replacement iron Osney Bridge opened.^[95]
• 1889
  • 9 November: Oxford becomes a county borough under the Local Government Act 1888.^[98] City boundaries extended to incorporate part of Headington and New Hinksey.
  • Manchester College, a dissenting academy, moves to Oxford from London.
  • Wolvercote Cemetery opened.
• 1891
  • Winter: River freezes solid at Folly Bridge.
  • Jane Willis Kirkaldy and Catherine Pollard become the first women to sit final examinations in biology at the University (and achieve first class honours).^[122]
• 1892
  • 27 April: The magazine Isis is established by University students.
  • 18 June: Oxford electricity company established with riverside works at Osney.^[123]
  • First Romanes Lecture (founded by George Romanes) delivered, by William Ewart Gladstone.^[124]
• 1893
  • 14 June: Opening of Shelley Memorial at University College, designed by Basil Champneys with a reclining nude marble statue of Shelley by Edward Onslow Ford.
  • 27 October: Oxford United F.C. formed as Headington United.^[125]
  • St Hilda's College founded by Dorothea Beale for women.

• 1894
  • 14 August: Oliver Lodge demonstrates radio transmission (of Morse code) from the Clarendon Laboratory to the University Museum for the British Association for the Advancement of Science.^[107]
  • November: Severe flooding.^[96]
• 1895
  • Winter: River freezes solid at Folly Bridge.
  • Roman Catholics are permitted by their hierarchy to attend the ancient universities.^[27]
• 1896
  • 9 September: Campion Hall established as Clarke's Hall, a private hall for Jesuits studying in the University.
  • Francis Fortescue Urquhart becomes the first Roman Catholic teaching fellow in the University (at Balliol) since the Reformation.
  • St Martin's Church at Carfax is demolished, except for the tower.
• 1897
  • 12 May: New Oxford Town Hall, designed by Henry Hare, officially opened.
  • October: St Benet's Hall founded by Benedictines of Ampleforth for their members to study for secular degrees of the University.
• 1899 – 26 December: Headington Quarry morris dancer and concertina player William Kimber is first heard by musicologist Cecil Sharp, an important moment in the English folk dance and music revival.^[126]

20th century

• 1900 – 6 July: Tirah Memorial unveiled.
• 1902
  • Rhodes Scholarship established with effect from 1 July 1903.
  • St Mary Hall closed, last of the medieval academic halls in the University.^[16]
• 1903 – June: Severe flooding.^[96]
• 1904
  • Spring: Severe flooding.^[96]
  • Approximate date: Logic Lane covered bridge built for University College.^[127]
• 1905 – Order of Friars Minor Capuchin establish a friary, St Anselm's.^[16]
• 1910 – 26 November: First permanent cinema in Oxford, the Oxford Electric Theatre in Castle Street, opens.^[16]
• 1911
  • 24 February: First purpose-built cinema in Oxford, the Oxford Picture Palace off the Cowley Road, opens. (On 25 March, the first purpose-built cinema in central Oxford, the Electra Palace in Queen Street, opens.)
  • 14 June: A Farnham pusher biplane lands on Port Meadow, the first aeroplane to land in Oxfordshire.^[113]
  • Max Beerbohm's satirical novel Zuleika Dobson is published.

• 1912
  • Summer Olympics in Stockholm: New College Boat Club represent Great Britain in rowing, winning silver.
  • 10 September: Two Royal Flying Corps officers are killed when their aeroplane crashes at Wolvercote. First aviation meeting held on Port Meadow on 24 October.
• 1913
  • 28 March: William Morris's Morris Oxford 2-seater car, assembled in Cowley, goes on sale.^[4]
  • 5 December: William Morris and Frank Gray begin the city's first regular service of motor buses.^[128]
• 1914
  • 14 January: Hertford College's "Bridge of Sighs" opened.^[129]
  • 14 August (probable date): City of Oxford Tramways Company runs its last horse trams, having replaced them with motor buses.
  • 16 August: 3rd Southern General Hospital, a military hospital headquartered in the Examination Schools, set up.^[130]
• 1916 – Dyson Perrins Laboratory opened in the University for the study of organic chemistry.
• 1917 – March: The city's first woman police offer (Grace Costin) is employed, partly to counter the wartime rise in prostitution.^[2]
• 1920
  • 18 May: Women lecturers are given equal status to their male colleagues at the University.
  • 7 October: The first one hundred women are admitted to study for full degrees at the University.
  • 14 October: The first women receive degrees at the University, these being awarded retrospectively. Dorothy L. Sayers is among them.^[16]
  • 9 November: Student newspaper Cherwell first published as a magazine.^[16]
• 1921
  • 11 March: Queen Mary becomes the first woman to be awarded an honorary degree by the University.
  • The Dominican Order refounds Blackfriars.
• 1922 – Plater College founded as the Catholic Workers' College.
• 1923 – 23 October: Oxford Playhouse opens in the former Big Game Museum in Woodstock Road under the direction of J. B. Fagan with a performance of Shaw's Heartbreak House.^[131]
• 1924 – 1 May: MG Cars established in Oxford.
• 1925
  • 7 September: City Council adopts Regional and Special Area Planning Schemes, including proposals for bypass roads.^[132]
  • First council houses built in Oxford, in Headington.^[133]
  • Museum of the History of Science opens in the Old Ashmolean building, set up by Robert Gunther based largely on the collection given by Dr. Lewis Evans.^[134]
• 1926
  • May: Oxford University Women's Boat Club founded.^[16]
  • 3–13 May: U.K. general strike.^[135]
  • 11 May: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien meet for the first time in Oxford.^[136]
• 1927
  • Regent's Park College, a Baptist institution, moves to Oxford from London.
  • Oxford Preservation Trust established.^[16]
  • Oxford is declared the winner of the first inter-university Women's Boat Race rowed against a Cambridge crew on the Thames.^[137]
• 1928
  • 15 February: The Oxford English Dictionary is completed after 70 years.
  • 12 December: Oxford Mail founded as a successor to Jackson's Oxford Journal.
  • Ferry to Ferry Hinksey ceases operation.

• 1929
  • 20 May: Consecration of Blackfriars chapel.^[16]
  • St Peter's College is founded as St Peter's Hall by the late Bishop Francis Chavasse for students of limited means in the University, on the site of New Inn Hall.
  • City boundary extensions incorporate most of Cowley, Headington and New Marston together with portions of Iffley, Wolvercote and Cutteslowe.^[17]
  • Rhodes House completed.^[16]
• 1931
  • May: Albert Einstein lectures at Rhodes House.
  • September: Franciscans open a new Greyfriars.^[16]
  • Non-collegiate students of the University recognised as St Catherine's Society.
• 1932
  • July: Kenneth Grahame buried in Holywell Cemetery alongside his son Alastair.
  • 14 December: South Park acquired by Oxford Preservation Trust.
  • Cattle market moved from Gloucester Green to Oxpens.
• 1933
  • 9 February: The King and Country debate: The Oxford Union passes a resolution stating, "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and country."^[138]
  • The name Inklings is taken by an informal literary discussion group.
• 1934
  • 26 February: Rebuilt New Theatre in George Street opens.^[16]
  • December: Cutteslowe Walls first built.
• 1935 – Oxford Airport established by the city council.
• 1936
  • 15 February: Exhibition Abstract and Concrete, curated by Nicolete Gray, opens at 41 St Giles', prior to touring England. It is the first showing of abstract art, and of the work of Mondrian, in the country.^[139]
  • June: New building for Campion Hall, designed by Edwin Lutyens, opened.^[140]
• 1937 – 16 November: Nuffield College is founded in the University by The Lord Nuffield as a graduate college for the study of the social sciences.
• 1938 – 22 October: Oxford Playhouse opens in purpose-built premises designed by Edward Maufe in Beaumont Street with a performance of J. B. Fagan's And So To Bed.^[131]
• 1939
  • 31 March: Oxford Stadium at Cowley is opened for organised greyhound racing. On 8 April dirt track motorcycle speedway racing is introduced here.
  • September: C. S. Lewis first narrates stories which will form The Chronicles of Narnia to child evacuees sharing his home at The Kilns.
• 1940 – 24 August: Howard Florey and a team including Ernst Chain, Arthur Duncan Gardner, Norman Heatley, M. Jennings, J. Orr-Ewing and G. Sanders at the University’s Sir William Dunn School of Pathology publish their laboratory results showing the in vivo bactericidal action of penicillin. They have also purified the drug.^[141][142]
• 1941
  • 12 February: Reserve Constable Albert Alexander, a patient at the Radcliffe Infirmary becomes the first person treated with penicillin intravenously, by Howard Florey's team. He reacts positively but there is insufficient supply of the drug to reverse his terminal infection. A successful treatment is achieved during May.^[142]
  • 5 May: Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin meet while both reading English at St John's College.^[143]

• 1942
  • 1 January: New Churchill Hospital buildings occupied as 2nd General Hospital of the United States Army Medical Department.^[145]
  • 5 October: Oxford Committee for Famine Relief is founded in the old library of the University Church.^[4]
• 1943 – University acquires Wytham Woods.
• 1944 – 'Edmund Crispin' (Bruce Montgomery)'s comic detective novel The Case of the Gilded Fly (written the previous Easter while he was an undergraduate), introducing his amateur sleuth Prof. Gervase Fen, is published.^[146]
• 1945 – Dorothy Hodgkin publishes the first three-dimensional molecular structure of a steroid, cholesteryl iodide.^[147][148]
• 1946 – City twinned with Leiden.
• 1947
  • March: Severe flooding.^[96]
  • December: First permanent Oxfam charity shop begins trading, in Broad Street.
  • City twinned with Bonn.
  • The University's Oxford Swift Research Project, based on the colony at the University Museum, is started by David and Elizabeth Lack. It will still be running more than sixty years later.^[149][150]
• 1948 – 20 September: Morris Minor launched.
• 1949
  • 21 April: Construction of Nuffield College begins on the site of a canal basin; it is substantially completed in 1958.
  • June: Oxford University Dramatic Society production of Shakespeare's The Tempest beside Worcester College lake, directed by Nevill Coghill.^[16]
  • Footbridge over Cherwell near Parson's Pleasure, probably the world's first prestressed concrete fixed-arch bridge, designed by Alfred Goldstein of R. Travers Morgan & Partners.

• 1950
  • 3 February: Oxford University parliamentary constituency abolished;^[151] the last sitting members (since 1945) are Sir Arthur Salter and A. P. Herbert.
  • October: St Antony's College, founded by gift of Sir Antonin Besse, admits its first students.
• 1951
  • Arthur Lehman Goodhart becomes the first American and the first Jew to head an Oxford college on becoming Master of University College.^[152]
  • 1 October: Rewley Road railway station closed to passengers.^[93]
• 1952
  • 19 May: St Anne's College chartered as a full college for women in the University.
  • 12 August: Last hanging at Oxford Prison.^[153]
• 1953
  • St Antony's College chartered.
  • St Clare's opened as a tutorial institution, The Oxford English Centre for Foreign Students.^[154]
  • City Council completes a 20-year Development Plan.^[132]
  • 9 October: Severe fire at St Michael at the North Gate caused by arson.
• 1954
  • 6 May: Oxford graduate Roger Bannister becomes the first person in the world to break the four-minute mile, at the University's Iffley Road Track.^[155]
  • November: Severe flooding.^[96]
• 1955
  • 20 August: Dorothy Hodgkin publishes the structure of vitamin B₁₂, for which she will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.^[156]
  • Mansfield College becomes a Permanent Private Hall.
• 1956
  • 23 April: C. S. Lewis and Joy Gresham make a civil marriage at Oxford register office.^[157]
  • 14 August: Iris Murdoch marries John Bayley at the register office.
• 1957
  • 15 February: St Edmund Hall granted status as a full college of the University but retains its traditional name.
  • 21 March: C. S. Lewis marries Joy Gresham in a Christian ceremony at her bedside in the Churchill Hospital.^[158]
  • c. October: Blackbird Leys estate construction begins.^[89]
• 1958 – Green belt adopted in planning.
• 1959
  • 9 March: Cutteslowe Walls demolished permanently.
  • April: Visit of Queen Elizabeth II.
  • 8 May: First production Morris Mini-Minor from the Cowley plant.
• 1960
  • Early: St John's College's "Beehives" completed, first student accommodation in a modern architectural style.
  • Oxford College of Further Education founded.^[159]
  • 4 November: Visit of Queen Elizabeth II.
• 1961
  • 24 January: St Peter's College granted the status of a full college in the University.
  • 14 March: The New English Bible (New Testament) is co-published by Oxford University Press.^[160]
  • A34 Road Bridge over the Thames built.
• 1962
  • 9 April: Windrush Tower, the first tower block at Blackbird Leys, is opened.
  • 2 June: Oxford United F.C., champions of the Southern League, are elected to The Football League.^[125]
  • 1 August: Linacre College is founded as Linacre House, a graduate society in the University.
  • October: St Catherine's College admits its first students (official opening 16 October 1964).
  • 22 October: Donnington Bridge opened.
  • 23 October: Style of Mayor of Oxford elevated to Lord Mayor by letters patent.^[29]
  • 5 November: Rioting.
• 1963
  • St Antony's College becomes a full college of the University.
  • August: Great Train Robbery: Roger Cordrey moves his share of the proceeds through Oxford.^[161]
• 1964 – University's St Cross Building, designed by Leslie Martin and Colin St John Wilson, completed.^[58]
• 1965
  • May: Cowley Centre opened.^[162]
  • Ring road over Isis Bridge opened.^[16]
  • St Cross College is founded as a graduate institution in the University.
  • Templeton College is founded as Oxford Centre for Management Studies.
  • Wolfson College is founded as Iffley College.
• 1966
  • 3 January: Last steam train operated by the Western Region of British Railways from Oxford.^[93]
  • 14 February: Oxford University Dramatic Society production of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus at Oxford Playhouse with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, directed by Nevill Coghill, opens.
  • 31 March: U.K. general election: Evan Luard becomes the only person to take the undivided Oxford parliamentary constituency for Labour.
  • 16 June: Blackwell's open the 930 m² underground Norrington Room in their main bookshop in Broad Street as part of a joint development with Trinity College.^[163]
• 1967 – University's Nuclear Physics Laboratory in Banbury Road built.^[58]
• 1968 – 2 May: The largely underground Christ Church Picture Gallery, designed by Powell and Moya, is opened.
• 1969
  • 1 April: Thames Valley Police formed by amalgamation of Oxford City Police, Oxfordshire Constabulary and other local forces. Headquarters are at Kidlington.
  • 24 June: An explosives expert blows up himself and his house at Littlemore.
  • Dorothy Hodgkin and University colleagues determine the structure of insulin.^[164]
• 1970–72 – Westgate Shopping Centre built.

• 1970
  • Oxford College of Technology at Headington becomes Oxford Polytechnic.
  • 29 October: BBC Radio Oxford begins broadcasting, from studios in Summertown.
• 1971
  • Florey Building in St Clement's completed as residential accommodation for Queen's College, one of architect James Stirling’s "red trilogy" of academic buildings.
  • October–November: Inner relief road through Christ Church Meadow, a scheme first officially proposed in 1945, is finally rejected.^[132]
  • 12 November: Marston Ferry Road opened, replacing the ferry over the Cherwell.^[114]
• 1972 – July: Phase 1 of the John Radcliffe Hospital, the maternity unit, opens at Headington.^[165]
• 1973
  • September: J. R. R. Tolkien buried in Wolvercote Cemetery alongside his wife Edith ("Beren" and "Lúthien").
  • December: Permanent park and ride facility for the city begins.
• 1974
  • 31 March: Local Government Act 1972 comes into effect ending formal University representation on the city council.
  • October: Five previously all-male colleges admit women undergraduates for the first time.^[16]
• 1975 – University administration moves to new offices in Wellington Square from Clarendon Building.
• 1976 – 2 January: Severe gale.
• 1979
  • 21 March: Last cattle market at Oxpens. Last general market held here 28 July 1982, having reverted to Gloucester Green.
  • 1 September: Green College is opened in the University on the site of the Radcliffe Observatory for the study of human welfare, following a gift from Cecil Howard Green.
• 1980
  • St Stephen's House moves to the East Oxford site vacated by the Society of St. John the Evangelist.
  • John B. Goodenough, working with colleagues at the University's Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, identifies the cathode material that enables development of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery.^[166][167]
  • First commercial MRI whole body scanner manufactured by Oxford Instruments at Osney Mead for installation at Hammersmith Hospital, London.^[168]
• 1981
  • 4 April: The Boat Race 1981 – Susan Brown, a 23-year-old biology student, becomes the first female cox in a winning Boat Race crew.^[169]
  • St Cross College moves to part of the Pusey House site in St Giles' as its main location.
• 1982
  • 20 July: Allen Hill and colleagues at the University develop a glucose biosensor.^[170]
  • November: Helen House, the world's first children's hospice, is set up by Sister Frances Dominica.^[171]
• 1983 – Oxford Centre for Management Studies renamed Templeton College.
• 1984 – 1 December: Oxford Ice Rink opened.
• 1985
  • 29 January: Somerville graduate Margaret Thatcher becomes the first post-war Prime Minister to be refused an honorary degree by the University.^[172]
  • 4 July: 13-year-old Ruth Lawrence of St Hugh's College achieves a first in Mathematics, becoming the youngest British person ever to earn a first-class degree.^[173]
  • Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies established.
• 1986
  • 20 April: Oxford United, in the First Division for the first time, win the Football League Cup with a 3-0 win over Queens Park Rangers at Wembley.
  • 1 August: Linacre College chartered as a full college in the University.
  • 9 August: The Headington Shark, designed by John Buckley, is installed at Bill Heine’s home.^[174]
  • Late: Alternative rock band Radiohead, as "On a Friday", play their first gig, at the Jericho Tavern.^[175]
• 1987 – 7 March: Thames Transit begins operations with high-frequency minibus service in Oxford and introduction of Oxford Tube express coach service to London via the M40 motorway.
• 1989
  • May: Members of the National Union of Journalists begin a picket of Robert Maxwell's Headington Hill Hall headquarters of Pergamon Press which lasts until September 1992.
  • 26 October: Gloucester Green reopened after redevelopment with shops and flats.^[51]
• 1990
  • 1 March: Kellogg College established at Rewley House for the education of external part-time students in the University.
  • Pembroke College opens its Geoffrey Arthur Building beside the Isis in Grandpont.
  • Oxford Science Park established.
• 1991 – 3 September: National outbreaks of rioting extend to Blackbird Leys.
• 1992 – Oxford Polytechnic chartered as Oxford Brookes University.
• 1993
  • February: Alternative rock band Supergrass formed.
  • Oxford Oratory established as an independent congregation.
  • Veronica Stallwood's detective novel Death and The Oxford Box, introducing her historical novelist sleuth Kate Ivory, is published.
• 1994 – 1 October: Kellogg College so named.

• 1995
  • Mansfield College chartered as a full college in the University of Oxford.
  • Philip Pullman's young-adult fantasy novel Northern Lights, opening in a parallel-universe Oxford, first of the His Dark Materials trilogy, is published.
• 1996
  • Harris Manchester College becomes a full college of the University of Oxford under this name.
  • Saïd Business School formed from the University of Oxford's School of Management Studies.
• 1998 – April: Severe flooding.^[96]
• 1999
  • Cornmarket pedestrianised^[176] and most through traffic diverted from The High.^[20]
  • 31 December: A Cézanne painting is stolen from the Ashmolean Museum.

21st century

• 2000 – End: BMW begin production of the new Mini car at Plant Oxford (Cowley).
• 2001
  • 4 August: Oxford United F.C. move from Manor Ground to the Kassam Stadium.^[177]
  • 1 November: Saïd Business School new building opened on the site of Rewley Road railway station.
• 2003 – Oxford University Police abolished.^[178]
• 2005
  • July: Plater College closes.
  • University's Future of Humanity Institute founded.

• 2006 – 5 May: Official inauguration of Oxford Castle quarter (the former prison) as a mixed-use heritage, hotel and restaurant complex.^[179]
• 2007
  • January: The Radcliffe Infirmary closes, hospital facilities having transferred to the John Radcliffe Hospital and other locations in the city, and the site is handed over to the University for development as the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.^[180]
  • July: Severe flooding.
• 2008
  • June: Greyfriars ceases to be a Permanent Private Hall of the University of Oxford.
  • 1 October: Green Templeton College formed by merger of Green and Templeton Colleges.
  • October: St Hilda's ceases to be the last single-sex college in the University of Oxford by admitting male undergraduates.^[181]
• 2009 – 7 November: Ashmolean Museum reopens to the public after major reconstruction by architect Rick Mather.^[182][183]
• 2012 – 28 October: Ruskin College officially reopens on its new site in Old Headington.^[184]
• 2013
  • 23 April: Pembroke College opens its Rokos Quad with a glass-sided footbridge over Brewer Street.^[185]
  • May: Oxford sex gang, having operated since 2006, is convicted.
  • Michaelmas: Andrew Wiles building for Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford opened in Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.
  • November: Oxford & Cherwell Valley College renamed City of Oxford College.^[159]
• 2014
  • February: Oxford Brookes University’s John Henry Brookes Building opened.^[186]
  • May: Harris Manchester College's Siew-Sngiem Clock Tower and Sukum Navapan Gate completed.^[187]
  • 20 June: Christ Church College opens the Jubilee Bridge, a footbridge over the Cherwell in Christ Church Meadow.^[188]
  • 29 September: The New Bodleian Library building reopens to readers of rare books and manuscripts after major reconstruction as the Weston Library.^[189]
• 2015 – 11 April: The Boat Races 2015, first in which the women's and men's races are rowed on the same course on the same day; the Oxford crews win both.

Births

• 1157 – 8 September: Richard I of England (d. 1199)
• 1166 – 24 December: John, King of England (d. 1216)
• c.1517 – Thomas Cooper, Bishop of Winchester (d. 1594)
• 1522/23 – John Piers, Archbishop of York (d. 1594)
• c.1560 – Thomas Harriot, polymath (d. 1621)
• c. 1562 – Nicholas Owen, Jesuit lay brother (martyred 1606)
• 1583 – 25 December (bapt.): Orlando Gibbons, composer (d. 1625)
• 1602
  • 12 October: William Chillingworth, religious controversialist (d. 1644)
  • Approximate date: Henry Marten, lawyer, radical politician, soldier and regicide (d. 1680)
• 1606 – 3 March (bapt.): William Davenant, dramatist (d. 1668)
• 1632 – 17 December: Anthony Wood, antiquary (d. 1695)
• 1734 – William Buckland, architect in colonial America (d. 1774)
• 1758 – 28 October: John Sibthorp, botanist (d. 1796)
• 1826 – 17 December: Frank Buckland, natural historian (d. 1880)
• 1837 – 12 December: J. R. Green, historian (d. 1883)
• 1839 – 19 October: Jane Morris, born Jane Burden, artists' model (d. 1914)
• 1842 – 14 May: Henry Taunt, topographical photographer (d. 1922)
• 1845 – 8 December: Herbert Giles, sinologist (d. 1935)
• 1856 – 15 February: Annie Mary Anne Henley Rogers, pioneer of higher education for women (d. in accident 1937)^[190]
• 1861 – 25 April: Gertrude Tuckwell, trade unionist (d. 1951)
• 1873 – 8 May: Nevil Sidgwick, theoretical chemist (d. 1952)
• 1877 – 10 October: William Morris, automobile engineer and philanthropist (d. 1963)
• 1884 – 9 November: Christopher Chavasse, Bishop of Rochester (d. 1962) & his twin brother Noel Godfrey Chavasse, surgeon, twice winner of the Victoria Cross (d. of wounds 1917)
• 1888 – 25 December: Michael Sadleir, born Michael Sadler, novelist (d. 1957)
• 1889 – 29 May: Basil Blackwell, bookseller and publisher (d. 1984)
• 1892 – 5 November: J. B. S. Haldane, polymath (d. 1964)
• 1893
  • 13 June: Dorothy L. Sayers, author (d. 1957)
  • 21 December: Winifred Nicholson, born Rosa Roberts, impressionist painter (d. 1981)
• 1903 – 12 May: Lennox Berkeley, classical composer (d. 1989)
• 1915 – 26 August: Humphrey Searle, classical composer (d. 1982)
• 1917 – 24 March: John Kendrew, biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d. 1997)
• 1918 – 17 February: Olive Gibbs, born Olive Cox, Labour politician, peace campaigner and twice mayor of Oxford (d. 1995)
• 1920 – 3 August: P. D. James, writer of detective fiction (d. 2014)
• 1924
  • 3 February: E. P. Thompson, Marxist historian (d. 1993)
  • 14 May: Tristram Cary, electronic composer (d. 2008)
• 1928 – 12 November: Maureen Gardner, Olympic hurdler (d. 1974)
• 1937 – 17 February: Benjamin Whitrow, actor
• 1938 – 12 September: Patrick Mower, born Patrick Shaw, television actor
• 1940 – 21 August: Dominick Harrod, broadcast economic journalist (d. 2013)
• 1941
  • 18 May: Miriam Margolyes, character actress
  • 30 August: Sue MacGregor, broadcaster
• 1942 – 8 January: Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist and cosmologist
• 1943
  • 21 March: Viv Stanshall, musician (d. 1995)
  • 28 August: Simon LeVay, neuroscientist
• 1944 – 14 April: John Sergeant, television journalist
• 1945 – 26 January: Jacqueline du Pré, cellist (d. 1987)
• 1946 – 29 April: Humphrey Carpenter, biographer (d. 2005)
• 1949 – 25 August: Martin Amis, novelist
• 1958 – 11 July: Mark Lester, child actor
• 1959
  • 11 June: Hugh Laurie, actor
  • 9 November: Frances O'Grady, trade unionist
• 1960 – Cressida Dick, senior police officer
• 1964 – 29 October: Yasmin Le Bon, born Yasmin Parvaneh, model
• 1965 – 20 January: Sophie, Countess of Wessex, born Sophie Rhys-Jones, member of the royal family
• 1966 – 24 July: Martin Keown, footballer
• 1976 – 1 April: David Oyelowo, actor
• 1979 – 11 September: Ting-Ting Hu, film actress
• 1983 – Gugu Mbatha-Raw, television actress

Deaths

• 727 – 19 October: Frideswide, abbess (b. c.650)
• 924 – 2 August: Ælfweard of Wessex, royal prince (b. c.902)
• 1002 – 13 November: Gunhilde, Viking noblewoman
• 1040 – 17 March: Harold Harefoot, king of England (b. c.1015)
• 1176 – Rosamund Clifford, royal mistress
• 1222 – 17 April: Robert of Reading (Haggai), convert to Judaism, executed
• 1292 – June?: Roger Bacon, friar, philosopher and scientist (b. c.1214)
• 1553 – 15 February: Catherine Vermigli, ex-nun^[38]
• 1610 – 9 November: George Napper, Catholic priest, executed (b. 1550)
• 1680 – 4 February: Jacob Bobart the Elder, botanist (b. 1599 in Brunswick)
• 1686 – 10 July: John Fell, Bishop of Oxford (b. 1625)
• 1709 – 30 June: Edward Lhuyd, Welsh natural historian and antiquarian (b. 1660)
• 1747 – 2 April: Johann Jacob Dillenius, botanist (b. 1684 in Darmstadt)
• 1790 – 21 May: Thomas Warton, poet (b. 1728)
• 1854 – 22 December: Martin Routh, classicist and President of Magdalen College (b. 1755)
• 1862 – 7 August: William Turner, topographical watercolourist (b. 1789)
• 1882 – 16 September: E. B. Pusey, high churchman (b. 1800)
• 1893 – 1 October: Benjamin Jowett, theologian, Master of Balliol and academic reformer (b. 1817)
• 1894 – 30 July: Walter Pater, art critic (b. 1839)
• 1896 – 8 February: Charles Umpherston Aitchison, colonial governor (b. 1832 in Edinburgh)
• 1899 – 6 October: Felicia Skene, writer and prison reformer (b. 1821 in Aix-en-Provence)
• 1900
  • 16 October: Sir Henry Acland, academic physician (b. 1815)
  • 28 October: Max Müller, orientalist (b. 1823 in Dessau)
• 1912 – 30 April: Henry Sweet, philologist (b. 1845)
• 1919 – 29 December: Sir William Osler, hospital physician, "father of modern medicine" (b. 1849 in Ontario)
• 1920 – 5 June: Rhoda Broughton, popular novelist (b. 1840)
• 1932 – 29 February: George Claridge Druce, botanist, pharmacist and mayor of Oxford (b. 1850)
• 1934 – 14 March: Francis Llewellyn Griffith, Egyptologist (b. 1862)
• 1941 – 11 July: Sir Arthur Evans, archaeologist of Minoan civilization (b. 1851)
• 1944 – 26 June: Edward Brooks, soldier, winner of the Victoria Cross (b. 1883)
• 1952
  • 18 July: Sir Hugh Cairns, neurosurgeon (b. 1896 in Australia)
  • 27 November: Franz Baermann Steiner, anthropologist (b. 1909 in Prague)
• 1955 – 31 March: Thomas Dunbabin, classical archaeologist and resistance leader (b. 1911 in Australia)
• 1957
  • 3 July: Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell, physicist (b. 1886 in Baden-Baden)
  • 27 October: Paul Jacobsthal, archaeologist (b. 1880 in Berlin)
• 1963 – 22 November: C. S. Lewis, author (b. 1898)
• 1971 – 4 July: Sir Maurice Bowra, classicist, Warden of Wadham College and wit (b. 1898)
• 1981 – 22 November: Sir Hans Krebs, biochemist (b. 1900 in Hildesheim)
• 1988 – 21 December: Nikolaas Tinbergen, animal behaviourist (b. 1907 in The Hague)
• 1992 – 24 January: John Sparrow, literary scholar and Warden of All Souls (b. 1906)
• 1997 – 5 November: Sir Isaiah Berlin, philosopher and President of Wolfson College (b. 1909 in Riga)
• 1999 – 27 March: Michael Aris, orientalist (b. 1946)
• 2007 – 21 August: Siobhan Dowd, children's novelist (b. 1960)
• 2011 – 18 January: John Herivel, cryptanalyst (b. 1918)
• 2014 – 14 October: A. H. Halsey, sociologist (b. 1923)

See also

• History of Oxford

References

External links

• "Introduction and history". University of Oxford. 

Further reading

Published prior to the 19th century

• David Loggan (1675). Oxonia illustrata. Oxford: at the Sheldonian Theatre. 
• Anthony Wood (1674). Historia et antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis. Oxford: at the Sheldonian Theatre. 
• Anthony Wood (1691). Athenæ Oxonienses: an Exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the University of Oxford from 1500 to 1690. London. 

Published in the 19th century

• George Alexander Cooke (1800). "Oxford". Topographical and statistical description of the county of Oxford. London: Printed for C. Cooke. 
• J. N. Brewer (1813). "Oxford". Beauties of England and Wales 12 (2). London: J. Harris. 
• New Pocket Companion for Oxford. Oxford: Printed for J. Cooke. 1814. OCLC 43132323. 
• "Oxford". Great Western Railway Guide. London: James Wyld. 1839. OCLC 12922212. 
• Oxford University and city guide, on a new plan. Oxford: Henry Slatter. 1841. 
• "Oxford". Black's Picturesque Tourist and Road-book of England and Wales (3rd ed.). Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black. 1853. 
• Theodore Alois Buckley (1862). "Oxford". Great Cities of the Middle Ages (2nd ed.). London: Routledge, Warne, & Routledge. 
• James J. Moore (1878). Historical handbook and guide to Oxford (2nd ed.). Oxford: T. Shrimpton and Son. 
• Edward C. Alden (1890). Alden's Oxford Guide (16th ed.). Oxford: Alden & Co. OCLC 10923077. 
• "Oxford". Great Britain (4th ed.). Leipsic: Karl Baedeker. 1897. OCLC 6430424. 
• Charles Gross (1897). "Oxford". Bibliography of British Municipal History. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co. 
• Visitor's guide to Oxford. Oxford: Parker & Co. 1897. OCLC 13779765. 

Published in the 20th century

• Edward Thomas (1903). Oxford. London: A. & C. Clark. 
• Andrew Lang (1906). Oxford. Boston: Cornhill Publishing Co. 
• Cecil Headlam (1907). The story of Oxford. London: Dent & Co. 
• Rhoda Murray (1912). The making of Oxford. Oxford: B.H. Blackwell. 
• John Betjeman (1938). An Oxford University Chest. London: John Miles. 
• Thomas Sharp (1948). Oxford Replanned. London: Architectural Press. 
• Edward Godfrey Cox (1949). "Cambridge and Oxford". Reference Guide to the Literature of Travel. 3: Great Britain. Seattle: University of Washington – via Hathi Trust. 
• Jan Morris (1965). Oxford. London: Faber. 
• W. N. Hargreaves-Mawdsley (1973). Oxford in the Age of John Locke. Centers of Civilization Series. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. OL 5284855M. 
• Jennifer Sherwood and Nikolaus Pevsner (1974). Oxfordshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-071045-0.  "Oxford" by Pevsner.
• James Stevens Curl (1977). The Erosion of Oxford. Oxford Illustrated Press. ISBN 0-902280-40-6. 
• Alan Crossley, ed. (1979). A History of the County of Oxford. Vol. 4: The City of Oxford. Victoria County History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0197227147. 
• T. H. Aston, ed. (1984- ). The History of the University of Oxford. Oxford University Press.
• Christopher Hibbert, ed. (1988). The Encyclopædia of Oxford. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-39917-X. 

Published in the 21st century

• Daniel A. Bell; Avner de-Shalit (2011). "Oxford". Spirit of Cities: Why the Identity of a City Matters in a Global Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691151441. 

Coordinates: 51°27′00″N 1°09′07″E / 51.450°N 1.152°E / 51.450; 1.152