Nuffield College () is one of the
constituent colleges
A collegiate university is a university in which functions are divided between a central administration and a number of constituent colleges. Historically, the first collegiate university was the University of Paris and its first college was the C ...
of the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
in England. It is a graduate college and specialises in the social sciences, particularly economics, politics and sociology. Nuffield is one of Oxford's newer colleges, having been founded in 1937, as well as one of the smallest, with around 90 postgraduate students and 60 academic
fellows.
It was also the first Oxford college to accept both men and women, having been coeducational since its foundation.
Its architecture is designed to conform to the traditional college layout and its modernist spire is a landmark for those approaching
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
from the west.
As of 2021, the college had an estimated
financial endowment
A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are o ...
of £282m. Due to its small intake, it was the wealthiest educational institution per student in the world as of 2013. Since 2017, Nuffield has committed to underwriting funding for all new students accepted to the college.
History
Nuffield College was founded in 1937 after a donation to the University of Oxford by
Lord Nuffield
William Richard Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, (10 October 1877 – 22 August 1963) was an English motor manufacturer and philanthropist. He was the founder of Morris Motors Limited and is remembered as the founder of the Nuffield Foundation, ...
, the industrialist and founder of
Morris Motors
Morris Motors Limited was a British privately owned motor vehicle manufacturing company formed in 1919 to take over the assets of William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, William Morris's WRM Motors Limited and continue production of the same veh ...
. On 16 November 1937, the
University
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
entered a Deed of Covenant and Trust with Lord Nuffield.
[Loveday] He donated land for the college on
New Road, to the west of the city centre near the mound of
Oxford Castle
Oxford Castle is a large, partly ruined medieval castle on the western side of central Oxford in Oxfordshire, England. Most of the original moated, wooden motte and bailey castle was replaced in stone in the late 12th or early 13th century and ...
, on the site of the largely disused basin of the
Oxford Canal
The Oxford Canal is a narrowboat canal in central England linking the City of Oxford with the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury (just north of Coventry and south of Bedworth) via Banbury and Rugby. Completed in 1790, it connects to the River Thames ...
.
[Tyack, p. 300] As well as the land, Nuffield gave £900,000 to build the college and to provide it with an endowment.
[Colvin, p. 174] For the creation of Nuffield College and for his other donations he was described in 1949 by an editorial in ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' as "the greatest benefactor of the University since the Middle Ages".
From its inception, Nuffield College initiated a number of trends at both Oxford and Cambridge. It was the first college to have both women and men housed together. It was also the first college to consist solely of graduate students. In addition, it was the first in modern times to have a defined subject focus, namely the social sciences.
Nuffield appointed its first fellows in 1939, but the outbreak of World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
meant that the college's construction did not begin until 1949. During the War, Nuffield hosted the Nuffield College Social Reconstruction Survey, which examined issues related to post-War reconstruction. Nuffield admitted its first students in 1945, and received its Royal Charter
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, bu ...
from the hands of the Duke of Edinburgh on 6 June 1958.
Buildings
Nuffield is located on the site of the basin of the Oxford Canal
The Oxford Canal is a narrowboat canal in central England linking the City of Oxford with the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury (just north of Coventry and south of Bedworth) via Banbury and Rugby. Completed in 1790, it connects to the River Thames ...
to the west of Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
. The land on which the college stands was formerly the city's principal canal basin and coal wharfs..
The architect Austen Harrison
Austen St. Barbe Harrison (1891–1976) was a British-born architect. While British, Harrison spent most of his career overseas, and mainly in the Middle East. His works include the British Representative's Residence, Amman, the High Commissione ...
, who had worked in Greece and Palestine, was appointed by the University to design the buildings. His initial design, heavily influenced by Mediterranean architecture, was rejected by Nuffield, who called it "un-English"[ and refused to allow his name to be associated with it. Harrison reworked the plans, aiming for "something on the lines of Cotswold domestic architecture",][ as Nuffield wanted. The plans were approved by Lord Nuffield in 1940. Construction of the college began after the war in 1949. Restrictions on construction after the ]Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
meant that work on the college was not completed until 1960. The original plan for the college to occupy land on both sides of Worcester Street was scaled down as a result of budget and material shortages, and to this day the land to the west of the college is occupied by a "temporary" car park. In one change, the tower, which had been planned to be ornamental, was redesigned to hold the college's library. It was the first tower built in Oxford for 200 years and is about tall, including the flèche on top. The buildings are arranged around two quadrangles, with residential accommodation for students and fellows in one, and the hall, library and administrative offices in the other. The chapel has stained glass
Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...
windows designed by John Piper.
The architectural aesthetic of the final design, particularly the tower and its flèche, has attracted some criticism; unlike the other "dreaming spires" of Oxford, Nuffield's tower is a masonry-clad steel-framed book-stack. The architectural historian Sir Howard Colvin said that Harrison's first design was Oxford's "most notable architectural casualty of the 1930s";[Colvin, p. 166] it has also been described as a "missed opportunity" to show that Oxford did not live "only in the past".[Richards] Reaction to the architecture of the college has been largely unfavourable. In the 1960s, it was described as "Oxford's biggest monument to barren reaction".[Smith, p. 28] The tower has been described as "ungainly",[Tyack, p. 301] and marred by repetitive windows. The travel writer Jan Morris
(Catharine) Jan MorrisJan Morris, Paul Clements, University of Wales Press, 2008, p. 7 (born James Humphry Morris; 2 October 192620 November 2020) was a Welsh historian, author and travel writer. She was known particularly for the ''Pax Brita ...
wrote that the college was "a hodge-podge from the start".[Morris, p. 205] However, the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, '' The Buildings of England'' ( ...
, although unimpressed with most of the college, thought that the tower helped the Oxford skyline and predicted it would "one day be loved".[Pevsner, p. 65] The writer Simon Jenkins doubted Pevsner's prediction, and claimed that "vegetation" was the "best hope" for the tower – as well as the rest of the college.[Jenkins]
Research
Around a third of Nuffield's fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
s hold appointments at the University of Oxford as lecturers, readers or professors. In addition, the college fully funds around a dozen "Official Fellowships", which the college views as tenured research professorships (although most also teach on the University's graduate programme), and about a dozen three-year Postdoctoral research fellows. The college also houses a number of young scholars who hold distinguished awards, such as British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...
post-doctoral fellowships, some senior research fellows and a group of research-active emeritus
''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
and honorary fellows. The college also produces works in the Nuffield Election Studies. The college is also home to the Centre for Social Investigation, an interdisciplinary research group examining inequalities and social progress in Britain.
The college was the birthplace of the "Oxford School" of Industrial Relations
Industrial relations or employment relations is the multidisciplinary academic field that studies the employment relationship; that is, the complex interrelations between employers and employees, labor/trade
unions, employer organizations, ...
; it pioneered the development of cost-benefit analysis for developing countries; and it has made a major contribution to the methodology of econometrics.
Sport
Rowing at Nuffield is in association with the Linacre College Boat Club
Linacre College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in the UK whose members comprise approximately 50 Fellow#Oxford.2C Cambridge and Dublin, fellows and 550 Postgraduate education, postgrad ...
.
People associated with Nuffield
Notable students and fellows
Many prominent people have studied at Nuffield, including Mark Carney
Mark Joseph Carney (born March 16, 1965) is a Canadian economist and banker who served as the governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013 and the governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020. Since October 2020, he is vice chairman an ...
, former Governor of the Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of ...
, Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh (; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian politician, economist and statesman who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is also the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indir ...
, former Prime Minister of India, Geoff Gallop, former Premier of Western Australia
The premier of Western Australia is the head of government of the state of Western Australia. The role of premier at a state level is similar to the role of the prime minister of Australia at a federal level. The premier leads the executive bra ...
and Nicholas Stern
Nicholas Herbert Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford, (born 22 April 1946 in Hammersmith) is a British economist, banker, and academic. He is the IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Cli ...
, former Chief Economist of the World Bank and President of the British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...
.
Notable fellows have included psephologist David Butler, political philosopher Michael Oakeshott
Michael Joseph Oakeshott FBA (; 11 December 1901 – 19 December 1990) was an English philosopher and political theorist who wrote about philosophy of history, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, philosophy of education, and philosophy of ...
, political theorist and economist G. D. H. Cole
George Douglas Howard Cole (25 September 1889 – 14 January 1959) was an English political theorist, economist, and historian. As a believer in common ownership of the means of production, he theorised guild socialism (production organised ...
, researcher of inequality Tony Atkinson
Sir Anthony Barnes Atkinson (4 September 1944 – 1 January 2017) was a British economist, Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics, and senior research fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.
A student of James Meade, Atkinson ...
, and statistician David Cox, who served as Warden between 1988 and 1994. Among the college's fellows and former fellows are three Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
laureates, John Hicks
Sir John Richards Hicks (8 April 1904 – 20 May 1989) was a British economist. He is considered one of the most important and influential economists of the twentieth century. The most familiar of his many contributions in the field of economic ...
, James Mirrlees
Sir James Alexander Mirrlees (5 July 1936 – 29 August 2018) was a British economist and winner of the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was knighted in the 1997 Birthday Honours.
Early life and education
Born in Minnigaf ...
, and Amartya Sen
Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher, who since 1972 has taught and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States. Sen has made contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, econom ...
.
Visiting fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
s include Stephanie Flanders
Stephanie Hope Flanders (born 5 August 1968) is a British economist and journalist, currently the head of Bloomberg News Economics. She was previously chief market strategist for Britain and Europe for J.P. Morgan Asset Management,[Tim Harford
Timothy Douglas Harford (born 27 September 1973) is an English economic journalist who lives in Oxford.
Harford is the author of four economics books and writes his long-running ''Financial Times'' column, " The Undercover Economist", syndi ...]
, author and economist, and George Soros
George Soros ( name written in eastern order), (born György Schwartz, August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist. , he had a net worth of US$8.6 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated mo ...
, investor and philanthropist.
In 2008, a third of all economists who were fellows of the British Academy had connections to Nuffield, as did a quarter of all political science, sociology and social statistics fellows.
File:Mark Carney World Economic Forum 2013 (3).jpg, Mark Carney
Mark Joseph Carney (born March 16, 1965) is a Canadian economist and banker who served as the governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013 and the governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020. Since October 2020, he is vice chairman an ...
, Governor of the Bank of England
The governor of the Bank of England is the most senior position in the Bank of England. It is nominally a civil service post, but the appointment tends to be from within the bank, with the incumbent grooming their successor. The governor of the Ba ...
File:Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in WEF ,2009.jpg, Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh (; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian politician, economist and statesman who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is also the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indir ...
, former Prime Minister of India
File:Geoffrey Gallop Midland (cropped).jpg, Geoff Gallop, former Premier of Western Australia
The premier of Western Australia is the head of government of the state of Western Australia. The role of premier at a state level is similar to the role of the prime minister of Australia at a federal level. The premier leads the executive bra ...
File:Nicholas Stern - World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2009.jpg, Nicholas Stern
Nicholas Herbert Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford, (born 22 April 1946 in Hammersmith) is a British economist, banker, and academic. He is the IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Cli ...
, economist and academic
File:Stephanie Flanders - Chatham House 2011.jpg, Stephanie Flanders
Stephanie Hope Flanders (born 5 August 1968) is a British economist and journalist, currently the head of Bloomberg News Economics. She was previously chief market strategist for Britain and Europe for J.P. Morgan Asset Management,[Tim Harford
Timothy Douglas Harford (born 27 September 1973) is an English economic journalist who lives in Oxford.
Harford is the author of four economics books and writes his long-running ''Financial Times'' column, " The Undercover Economist", syndi ...]
, economist and journalist
File:George Soros 47th Munich Security Conference 2011 crop.jpg, George Soros
George Soros ( name written in eastern order), (born György Schwartz, August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist. , he had a net worth of US$8.6 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated mo ...
, business magnate
File:Nci-vol-8182-300 david cox.jpg, Sir David Cox, statistician
File:Robert Skidelsky, IEIS conference «The Politics of Virtue, the crisis of liberalism and the post-liberal future».jpg, Lord Skidelsky, economic historian
Wardens
* Sir Harold Butler, 1938–1945
* Sir Henry Clay, 1945–1949
* Alexander Loveday, 1949–1954
* Sir Norman Chester, 1954–1978
*Michael Brock
Michael George Brock (9 March 1920 – 30 April 2014) was a British historian who was associated with several Oxford colleges during his academic career. He was Warden of Nuffield College, Oxford, from 1978 to 1988.
Youth and education
Michae ...
, 1978–1988
* Sir David Cox, 1988–1994
* Sir Anthony Atkinson, 1994–2006
* Sir Stephen Nickell, 2006–2012
* Sir Andrew Dilnot, 2012–present
Visitors
The Visitor of Nuffield College is ''ex officio'' the Master of the Rolls
The Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, known as the Master of the Rolls, is the President of the Court of Appeal (England and Wales)#Civil Division, Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales a ...
, currently Sir Terence Etherton
Terence Michael Elkan Barnet Etherton, Baron Etherton, (born 21 June 1951) is a British retired judge and member of the House of Lords. He was the Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice from 2016 to 2021 and Chancellor of the High Court ...
.
Gallery
File:Flight 9.9.06b 011.jpg, Aerial view showing Nuffield College and Castle Mound at centre left
File:Nuffield College - geograph.org.uk - 1479917.jpg, The spire of Nuffield is prominent in the Oxford skyline
File:Nuffield College corner.jpg, College buildings at the corner of New Road and Worcester Street
File:Nuffield College From Castle Mound, Oxford - geograph.org.uk - 1614860.jpg, Nuffield College from the top of Castle Mound
File:Nuffield College quad.jpg, Sculptures and a pond in the Quad
File:Nuffield College windows.jpg, Windows of the lower quadrangle
File:Nuffield College, Oxford.jpg, The view from street level
File:Nuffield west gate.jpg, The west gate
References
;Notes
;References
;Bibliography
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External links
*
Virtual Tour of Nuffield College
{{authority control
Educational institutions established in 1937
Colleges of the University of Oxford
1937 establishments in England