Oxford: Definition from Answers.com

This article is about the city of Oxford in England. For other cities and other meanings, see Oxford (disambiguation).

City of Oxford
	Shown within Oxfordshire
Geography
Status:	City (1542)
Region:	South East England
Admin. County:	Oxfordshire
Area: - Total	Ranked 306th 45.59 km² (17.6 sq mi)
Admin. HQ:	Oxford
Grid reference:	SP 51 06
ONS code:	38UC
Demographics
Population: - Total (2006 est.) - Density	Ranked 112th 149,100 / km²
Ethnicity:	87.1% White 4.8% S.Asian 2.5% Afro-Carib. 1.8% Chinese 3.8% Mixed Race or other
Politics
Oxford City Council http://www.oxford.gov.uk/
Leadership:	Leader & Cabinet
Executive:	Liberal Democrat / Labour / Green
MPs:	Evan Harris, Andrew Smith

Oxford is a city and local government district in Oxfordshire, England, with a population of 134,248 (2001 census). It is home to the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world.

It is known as the "city of dreaming spires", a term coined by Matthew Arnold in reference to the harmonious architecture of the university buildings. The River Thames runs through Oxford, where for a distance of some 10 miles it is known as the Isis.

The Oxford suburb of Cowley has a long history of carmaking and now produces the BMW MINI.

History

Skyline of the city of Oxford

The Radcliffe Camera

Oxford was first occupied in Saxon times, and was initially known as "Oxenaforda".^[1] It began with the foundation of St Frideswide's nunnery in the 8th century, and was first mentioned in written records in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 912. In the 10th century Oxford became an important military frontier town between the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex and was on several occasions raided by Danes. St Frideswide is the patron saint of both the city and university.

The prestige of Oxford is seen in the fact that it received a charter from King Henry II, granting its citizens the same privileges and exemptions as those enjoyed by the capital of the kingdom; and various important religious houses were founded in or near the city. A grandson of King John established Rewley Abbey for the Cistercian Order; and friars of various orders (Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Augustinians, and Trinitarians), all had houses at Oxford of varying importance. Parliaments were often held in the city during the thirteenth century. The Provisions of Oxford were installed in 1258 by a group of barons led by Simon de Montfort; these documents are often regarded as England's first written constitution.

The University of Oxford is first mentioned in 12th century records. Oxford's earliest colleges were University College (1249), Balliol (1263) and Merton (1264). These colleges were established at a time when Europeans were starting to translate the writings of Greek philosophers. These writings challenged European ideology – inspiring scientific discoveries and advancements in the arts – as society began seeing itself in a new way. These colleges at Oxford were supported by the Church in hopes to reconcile Greek Philosophy and Christian Theology. The relationship between "town and gown" has often been uneasy — as many as 93 students and townspeople were killed in the St Scholastica Day Riot of 1355.

Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford is unique as a college chapel and cathedral in one foundation. Originally the Priory Church of St Frideswide, the building was extended and incorporated into the structure of the Cardinal's College shortly before its refounding as Christ Church in 1546, since which time it has functioned as the cathedral of the Diocese of Oxford.

The Oxford Martyrs were tried for heresy in 1555 and subsequently burnt at the stake, on what is now Broad Street, for their religious beliefs and teachings. The three martyrs were the bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, and the Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.

During the English Civil War, Oxford housed the court of Charles I in 1642, after the king was expelled from London, although there was strong support in the town for the Parliamentarian cause. The town yielded to Parliamentarian forces under General Fairfax in the Siege of Oxford of 1646. It later housed the court of Charles II during the Great Plague of London in 1665-66. Although reluctant to do so, he was forced to evacuate when the plague got too close.

In 1790 the Oxford Canal connected the city with Coventry. The Duke's Cut was completed by the Duke of Marlborough in 1789 to link the new canal with the River Thames; and in 1796 the Oxford Canal company built their own link to the Thames, at Isis Lock. In the 1840s, the Great Western Railway and London and North Western Railway linked Oxford with London.

In the 19th century, the controversy surrounding the Oxford Movement in the Anglican Church drew attention to the city as a focus of theological thought.

Map of Oxford (1904)

Oxford's Town Hall was built by Henry T. Hare, the foundation stone was laid on 6 July 1893 and opened by the future King Edward VII on 12 May 1897. The site has been the seat of local government since the Guild Hall of 1292 and though Oxford is a city and a Lord Mayoralty, it is still called by its traditional name of "Town Hall".

By the early 20th century, Oxford was experiencing rapid industrial and population growth, with the printing and publishing industries becoming well established by the 1920s. Also during that decade, the economy and society of Oxford underwent a huge transformation as William Morris established the Morris Motor Company to mass produce cars in Cowley, on the south-eastern edge of the city. By the early 1970s over 20,000 people worked in Cowley at the huge Morris Motors and Pressed Steel Fisher plants. By this time Oxford was a city of two halves: the university city to the west of Magdalen Bridge (from where students traditionally jump into the River Cherwell every May Day morning) and the car town to the east. This led to the witticism that "Oxford is the left bank of Cowley". Cowley suffered major job losses in the 1980s and 1990s during the decline of British Leyland, but is now producing the successful New MINI for BMW on a smaller site. A large area of the original car manufacturing facility at Cowley was demolished in the 1990s and is now the site of a major business park.

The influx of migrant labour to the car plants, recent immigration from south-east Asia, and a large student population, have given Oxford a notable cosmopolitan character, especially in the Headington and Cowley Road areas with their many bars, cafes, restaurants, clubs, ethnic shops and fast food outlets. Oxford is one of the most diverse small cities in Britain with more than 19.3% of the population born outside of the UK and 23.2% from an ethnic minority group, including 12.9% from a non-white ethnic minority ethnic group (2001 Census)

On 6 May 1954, Roger Bannister, as a 25 year old medical student, ran the first authenticated four-minute mile at the Iffley Road running track in Oxford.

Oxford's second university, Oxford Brookes University, formerly the Oxford School of Art, based on Headington Hill, was given its charter in 1991 and has been voted for the last five years the best new university in the UK.

Transport

A map of Oxford, 1605.

Oxford is located some 55 miles (90 km) north west of London and 70 miles (110 km) south east of Birmingham, and the M40 motorway between London and Birmingham passes within seven miles of Oxford. The A34 road between Hampshire and the Midlands passes Oxford and forms the western part of the city's bypass. The other trunk roads serving Oxford are the A40 road linking London, the Cotswolds and West Wales, and the A420 road between Oxford and Bristol via Swindon.

Rail connections include services to London (Paddington), Bournemouth, Worcester (via the Cotswold Line), Birmingham, Coventry and the north, as well as Banbury and Bicester.

The Bicester railway branch is part of the route of a former railway service connecting Oxford and Cambridge that was known as the Varsity Line. Parts of the line have been closed since the end of 1967, but in 2006 the Department for Transport (DfT) has ordered a £300,000 feasibility study to consider reopening it.

The Oxford Canal links Oxford to the Midlands, and connects at Oxford with the River Thames. The Thames provides a navigable link, nowadays chiefly for leisure craft, as far as Lechlade to the west and Teddington Lock to the east and onwards to London. Oxford Airport at Kidlington offers business and General Aviation services.

Most local bus services are provided by the Oxford Bus Company and Stagecoach South Midlands and include two competing frequent-interval coach services to London, Stagecoach's Oxford Tube, and Oxford Bus's Oxford Espress, both of which leave from Gloucester Green Bus Station on the western edge of the city centre. Stagecoach also runs a half-hourly coach service to Cambridge, and a less frequent service to Northampton, whilst many National Express services between the North and Midlands and the South/South West call in the city. Other local and rural bus services are provided by Wallingford-based Thames Travel.

Park and Ride

Oxford has 5 park and ride sites that service the city centre;

Pear Tree
Water Eaton
Thornhill
Redbridge
Seacourt

A service also runs to The John Radcliffe Hospital (via Thornhill/Water Eaton) as well as the Churchill and Nuffield Hospitals (via Thornhill), see the National Park and Ride Directory for more details

Tourist attractions

The Oxford skyline facing Christ Church to the south (Christ Church Cathedral on the left and Tom Tower on the right)

Oxford has numerous major tourist attractions, many belonging to the university and colleges. As well as several famous institutions, the town centre is home to Carfax Tower and a historical themed ride, The Oxford Story due to close in October 2007. Many tourists shop at the historic Covered Market. In the summer, punting on the Thames/Isis and the Cherwell is popular.

Religious sites

Main article: List of churches in Oxford

Christ Church Cathedral
The Church of St Mary the Virgin (the University Church)
Martyrs' Memorial

Museums and galleries

Oxford University Museum of Natural History

University of Oxford

Ashmolean Museum, Britain's oldest museum
Pitt Rivers Museum
Museum of Natural History, home of (the remains of) the Oxford Dodo
Museum of the History of Science, in Britain's oldest purpose-built museum building
Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, St Aldate's

Others

Museum of Oxford
Museum of Modern Art
Science Oxford
Oxfordshire Visual Arts Development Agency (Ovada)

University buildings

Oxford University Press

(Other than the colleges)

The Bodleian Library
The Clarendon Building (often used as a set for film and television)
The Radcliffe Camera (one of several institutions named after John Radcliffe)
The Sheldonian Theatre
The Oxford University Press

Open spaces

The floodplains for Oxford's two rivers reach right into the heart of the city, providing a wealth of green spaces.

Punts in Oxford

Commercial areas

Outside the City Centre:

Templars Square Shopping Centre, Cowley, Oxford
Cowley Road, Oxford
St. Clements, Oxford
London Road, Headington, Oxford
Banbury Road, Summertown, Oxford
Walton Street, Jericho, Oxford
Botley Road, Oxford
North Parade, Oxford
Cowley Retail Park, Cowley, Oxford

Theatres and cinemas

Oxford Playhouse, Beaumont Street
New Theatre, George Street
Burton Taylor Theatre, Worcester Street
Old Fire Station Theatre, George Street
Pegasus Theatre, Magdalen Road
Ultimate Picture Palace, Cowley Road
Phoenix Picturehouse, Walton Street
Odeon Cinema, George Street
Odeon Cinema, Magdalen Street
Vue Cinema, Grenoble Road

Public houses

See: Category:Public houses in Oxford

Media and press

As well as the BBC national radio stations, Oxford and the surrounding area has several local stations, including BBC Radio Oxford, Fox FM, new station Oxford's FM107.9,^[2] and Oxide: Oxford Student Radio^[3] (which went on terrestrial radio at 87.7 MHz FM in late May 2005). A local TV station, Six TV: The Oxford Channel is also available. The city is home to a BBC TV newsroom which produces an opt-out from the main South Today programme broadcast from Southampton.

Popular local papers include The Oxford Times (broadsheet; weekly), its sister papers The Oxford Mail (tabloid; daily) and The Oxford Star (tabloid; free and delivered), and Oxford Journal (tabloid; weekly free pick-up). Oxford is also home to several advertising agencies.

Daily Information is an events and advertising news sheet which has been published since 1964.

Recently (2003) DIY grassroots non-corporate media has begun to spread.^[4] Independent and community newspapers include the Jericho Echo^[5] and Oxford Prospect.^[6]

Literature in Oxford

Well-known Oxford-based authors include:

Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), Student and Mathematical Lecturer of Christ Church.
Colin Dexter who wrote and set his Inspector Morse detective novels in Oxford. Colin Dexter still lives in Oxford.
John Donaldson (d.1989), a poet resident in Oxford in later life.
Siobhan Dowd Oxford resident; who was an undergraduate at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
Michael Innes (J. I. M. Stewart), of Christ Church.
P. D. James who lives part-time in Oxford.
T. E. Lawrence, "Lawrence of Arabia", Oxford resident, undergraduate at Jesus, postgraduate at Magdalen.
C. S. Lewis, Fellow of Magdalen.
Ian McEwan, formerly an Oxford resident for many years.
Iris Murdoch, Fellow of St Anne's.
Mike Philbin, wrote his infamous Hertzan Chimera novels/stories in Oxford.
Iain Pears, undergraduate at Wadham College and Oxford resident, whose novel An Instance of the Fingerpost is set in the city.
Philip Pullman who was an undergraduate at Exeter.
Dorothy L. Sayers who was an undergraduate at Somerville.
J. R. R. Tolkien, undergraduate at Exeter and later professor of English at Merton.

Many English novels have been set partly or wholly in Oxford. They include:

Jude the Obscure (1895) by Thomas Hardy (in which Oxford is thinly disguised as "Christminster").
Zuleika Dobson (1911) by Max Beerbohm.
Gaudy Night (1935) by Dorothy L. Sayers.
Brideshead Revisited (1945) by Evelyn Waugh.
The Children of Men (1992) by P. D. James.
His Dark Materials (1995 onwards) by Philip Pullman

Oxford has been used as a location in many films, including:

Accident (1967)
Another Country (1984)
Howards End (1992)
Shadowlands (1993)
The Madness of King George (1994)
The Saint (1997)
Wilde (1997)
Quills (2000)
Iris (2001)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
The Oxford Murders (2007)
The Red Violin (1998)
Oxford Blues (1984)

See also Oxford in literature and other media in the University of Oxford article.

Notable Oxonians

See: Category:People from Oxford

Music from Oxford

See: Category:Music from Oxford

Schools

See: Category:Schools in Oxford

Oxford is home to wide range of schools many of which receive pupils from around the world. Three are University choral foundations, established to educate the boy choristers of the chapel choirs, and have kept the tradition of single sex education. Examination results in Oxford schools are consistently below the national average and regional average however results in the city are improving with 44% of pupils gaining 5 grades A*-C in 2006.^[7]

Geography

Oxford's latitude and longitude are 51°45′07″N, 1°15′28″WCoordinates: 51°45′07″N, 1°15′28″W (at Carfax Tower, which is usually considered the centre).

Wards, neighbourhoods, and suburbs

The Headington Shark

Politics in Oxford

Oxford City Council

Main article: Oxford local elections

Despite stereotypes of Oxford being a conservative city, there are no elected Conservatives on the city council, although two Liberal Democrat councillors have crossed the floor to join the Conservatives since the last set of elections in 2006. Since the 2004 local elections, the council has been in minority administration, first by councillors from the Labour Party, with the Liberal Democrats being the official opposition. Since 2006 these roles were reversed, although four councillors have since left the Liberal Democrats, two each joining Labour and the Conservatives. With eight city councillors and five county councillors, Oxford has one of the highest Green Party representation for a UK city. The Independent Working Class Association also has councillors, mainly elected to serve wards with many housing estates in the south east of the city, such as Blackbird Leys and Wood Farm. See Oxford Council election 2004 for further information.

Since 2002, elections have been held for Oxford City Council in even years, with each councillor serving a term of four years. Each electoral ward within Oxford is represented by two councillors, thus all wards elect one councillor at each election. Prior to 2002, the City Council was elected by thirds.

Partisan Composition

Year	Labour	Lib Dem	Green	IWCA	Conservative	Source
2000	21	21	7	1	1	[1]
2002	29	15	3	1	0	[2]
2004	20	18	7	3	0	[3]
2006	17	19	8	4	0	[4]
2007	19	15	8	4	2	[5]

Partisan control

1974 – 1976: Labour
1976 – 1980: Conservative
1980 – 2000: Labour
2000 – 2002: No overall control
2002 – 2004: Labour
2004 – Present: No overall control

Westminster representation

A pre-election husting at the Oxford West and Abingdon constituency

The two MPs are Andrew Smith from the Oxford East constituency, erstwhile Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the Labour government; and Dr Evan Harris from the Oxford West and Abingdon constituency, Liberal Democrat science spokesman. At the 2005 general election, Oxford East became a marginal seat with a Labour majority over the Liberal Democrats of just 963. Oxford West and Abingdon is a safe seat for the Liberal Democrats with Dr Harris enjoying a majority of just under 8,000.

Alternative culture

There is also a large and vibrant alternative political culture mostly situated in East Oxford. Some examples are:

Sport

Oxford is considered to be an important centre of the sport of swimming in England.^{[citation needed]} The Amateur Swimming Association was founded in 1869 in England, but it was much later, in 1909, that Oxford Swimming Club came into existence. In 1939, Oxford had its first major public indoor pool at Temple Cowley in the whole of England. After the pool was installed, swimming began to take off and soon Oxford Swimming Club became Oxford City Swimming Club, and Temple Cowley Pool was its home.

Speedway racing has been staged in Oxford since 1939. The track at Cowley operated in 1940 before closing for a number of years. It then re-opened in 1949 and has enjoyed success and failure in equal amounts. ^{[citation needed]}

Parishes

Unusually for such a compact urban district, Oxford has four civil parishes with parish councils — these are Blackbird Leys, Littlemore, Old Marston and Risinghurst and Sandhills. Note: Littlemore, Marston and Risinghurst and Sandhills have only recently been brought within the city boundary.

Trade and business

The Oxford suburb of Cowley has a long history of carmaking and now produces the BMW MINI.

Brewing

Morrells, the Oxford based regional brewery was founded in 1743 by Richard Tawney. He formed a partnership in 1782 with Mark and James Morrell, who eventually became the owners.^[8] The brewery building, known as the "Lion Brewery", was located in St Thomas Street. It closed in 1998,^[9] the beer brand names being taken over by the Thomas Hardy Burtonwood brewery.^[10], while the 132 tied pubs were bought by "Morrells of Oxford"^[11], who sold the bulk of them on to Greene King in 2002^[12]. The Lion Brewery was converted into luxury apartments in 2002.^[13]