Portal:University of Oxford

The 1874 FA Cup Final was played between Oxford University A.F.C. and Royal Engineers A.F.C. on 14 March 1874 at Kennington Oval in London. It was the third final of the world's oldest football competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup (known in the modern era as the FA Cup). Both teams had previously reached the final but been defeated by Wanderers F.C. The Engineers had reached the final with comparative ease, scoring sixteen goals and conceding only one in the four previous rounds. Oxford's opponents in the earlier rounds had included two-time former winners Wanderers. The final was decided by two goals from Oxford in the first twenty minutes. Their opponents had spent two weeks training for the match, an innovative concept at the time, but were repeatedly thwarted by Charles Nepean, the Oxford goalkeeper. The Engineers were said to have missed their best back, Lieut. Alfred Goodwyn, who had been posted overseas. The 1874 final was the only occasion upon which Oxford University won the FA Cup; the team made further appearances in the 1877 and 1880 finals, but lost on both occasions. (Full article...)

J. R. R. Tolkien was a British writer and university professor, best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, also at Oxford, from 1945 to 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, with whom he shared membership in the Oxford literary discussion group the "Inklings". In addition to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's published fiction includes The Silmarillion and other posthumously published books about what he called a legendarium, a connected body of tales, fictional histories, invented languages, and other literary essays about an imagined world called Arda, and Middle-earth. Most of these works were compiled from Tolkien's notes by his son Christopher Tolkien. The enduring popularity and influence of Tolkien's works have established him as the "father of modern fantasy literature". Tolkien's other published fiction includes stories not directly related to the legendarium, some of them originally told to his children. (more...)

All Souls College was founded by Henry Chichele (the Archbishop of Canterbury) and King Henry VI in 1438. There are no undergraduates at the college, although there have been at some stages of its history, but the Codrington Library is open to some students from the wider university. All of the college's members are Fellows, including many distinguished scholars. Several of the university's professorships are attached to the college, such as the Chichele Professorships and the Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature. Many academics from overseas spend time at the college as Visiting Fellows. All Souls is centrally located on the High Street, near the Bodleian Library and the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. The chapel contains a complete set of misericords from the 15th century. The architect Nicholas Hawksmoor remodelled much of All Souls in the 18th century. The customs of the college include a feast every one hundred years (last held in 2001) at which the Fellows parade around All Souls, carrying flaming torches and singing the "Mallard Song", to commemorate an incident when a mallard is said to have flown out of the foundations as it was being built. (Full article...)