The Oxford Times | History

The Railway Station Oxford might have had

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:05:25 +0100

The railways came to Oxford comparatively late — thanks to the university authorities’ fear that the bright lights of London might tempt undergraduates away from their studies and generally undermine the cloistered world of dreaming spires.

Rhodes Scholarships in Oxford

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:35:04 +0100

The first Rhodes scholars to arrive in Oxford, in the year following the death of Cecil Rhodes himself, were three young Germans. In a book written in 1953 to commemorate the first 50 years of the scholarships, (The Rhodes Trust, published by Basil Blackwell) the Trust’s Oxford Secretary, Sir Francis Wylie, then in his eighties, remembers the occasion. “I came into the Lodge at Brasenose (where I was still living), and was met by the porter: ‘Three gentlemen to see you, Sir.’ “I turned, to find myself facing three immaculate young Germans, complete with top hats, frock coats and patent leather boots. They clicked their heels as one man, and bowed. The first Rhodes Scholars! Spotless too! And there was I, straight from golf on the old links above Hinksey, muddy and bedraggled. A disconcerting contrast.”

Riots weren't just Town versus Gown

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:01:45 +0100

The stocks which for centuries had stood in the shadow of Carfax tower, at the very heart of Oxford, were destroyed by fire during the strange riots of 1856. The riots were strange because, for a change, they had nothing to do with Town and Gown. Instead they involved lighting bonfires in the streets to protest against the lack of any official public feasting to mark the end of the Crimean War – an event that townspeople in particular thought would bring down the price of wheat and, in consequence, bread too.

Bathing's place in our history

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:27:31 +0100

A TEENAGER being taught to punt — and taking a swim by mistake; a child lying on his front on the river bank and pushing about a boat made of newspaper; a family setting out across a field towards a favourite bathing place, bearing towels and the inner tube of an old tyre.

The early history of Bladon Primary School

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:47:22 +0100

In the mid 19th century a Royal Commission found that fewer than one in eight children in England and Wales were going to school, or receiving any kind of education at all other than, perhaps, at Sunday School. That Commission reported in 1858, some 20 years after the Government had decided that it should give official support to National Schools – so even fewer children must have been on the receiving end of any kind of education before that. National Schools were church schools founded along the guidelines of the National Society for the Promoting of the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, which had held its first meeting as early as 1811. Its mission was to found a school in every parish with the stated purpose “that the National Religion should be made the foundation of National Education, and should be the first and chief thing taught to the poor”.

County's relics of the mighty Roman empire

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:49:14 +0100

Amid all the modern talk of a possible future United States of Europe, complete with a common currency, it is easy to forget that what is now Oxfordshire was for centuries a part of just such a super state.

Art from Flowers of Botany Bay

Wed, 27 May 2009 15:51:22 +0100

At an interior decorator’s shop in Burford (Ian Wright Interiors), I came across some exquisite flowers depicted on table mats and coasters which, I learned, had been originally produced by Mary Delaney (1700-1788) using a completely novel means of production — and had been recreated in modern times by the Irish Georgian Society.

Pitt Rivers Museum, a wonderland for the whole family

Wed, 06 May 2009 14:19:43 +0100

Wonderful to see so many families and children visiting the wonderland of anthropology that is Oxford University’s Pitt Rivers Museum, reopened last week after its £1.5m overhaul. But talk about autres temps, autres moeurs — other times, other customs. Back in 1884, when the museum was built, General Augustus Pitt Rivers defined one of its main purposes as “to illustrate the arts of Prehistoric times, as far as practicable, by those existing savages in corresponding stages of civilisation”.

May Day frolics in city and county

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:38:22 +0100

Could May morning singing from the top of Magdalen College Tower date right back to 1509, or 500 years ago tomorrow? Possibly. Benefactor of the college King Henry VII died on April 21 that year and May 1 could have been chosen as the day to commemorate him — perhaps combining the Christian Requiem Mass with a much earlier Pagan custom of welcoming in the Spring.

Executions by the churchyard

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:12:01 +0100

People who carve their names on buildings, or on tree trunks, do so, I suppose, in a bid to obtain some sort of immortality; to have their brief lives remembered long after they die. One such person certainly achieved that objective. He was someone called Anthony Sedley, who carved his name on the font in Burford Church 360 years ago next month, and has been remembered annually by hundreds.