NEW TOUR LAUNCH: UNNATUAL HISTORIES

Join us for a unique tour of the Natural History Museum in Oxford! We'll explore how human influence and selective choice shape the narrative of natural history museums, offering an 'unnatural' perspective on their historical and ideological foundations.

Engraving showing a skeleton in robes and crown wielding a scythe.

‘Anti-Vacers’: Vaccine Resistance in nineteenth-century Oxfordshire

The COVID-19 pandemic brought vaccine tensions to the forefront of public discourse. Oxford centred vividly …

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Cartoon drawing showing a man in academic robe entering a salon in which a couple is sitting together.

Proctors and Prostitutes: Policing Women at the University of Oxford

Until the late 1870s, the University of Oxford was an all-male institution, frequented by young …

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A paper featuring the portrait of several people, linking them to physiology and criminality.

Medicine and Colonization: How Scientific Research Shapes Politics

In recent months we have seen a wave of renaming initiatives around the world, which …

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Picture of a man in suit and tie frowning.

More than Morse: The Origins of Policing in Oxford

When we think of policing in Oxford, the most enduring image that comes to mind …

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Photo of a sunny residential street with pastel coloured houses.

Oxford’s Night Soil Man

The row of houses on the north-east end of St Clement’s Street today looks rather …

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Picture of the statue of a man with a waistcoat and jacket.

Sir John A. Macdonald: National Hero or Architect of Genocide?

On Saturday August 29, 2020, Black Lives Matter and Indigenous Rights protestors unbolted and pulling …

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Photograph of a statue of a man in military uniform wearing a tricorn.

Horatio Nelson: Turning a blind eye to slavery?

Some of the monuments currently under the spotlight depict individuals who were lost in the …

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Photograph showing the back of a statue and a city park

King Leopold II: A Bloody Legacy written in Marble

Many representations of Leopold II can be found dotted around Brussels, as well as several …

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Photograph of an equestrian statue with the head of the rider covered by a black and white traffic cone

The Duke of Wellington: The man with a cone on his head

Carlo Marochetti’s equestrian statue of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, which resides over Royal Exchange …

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An illustration poster with a read hand cutting the trunk of a tree with a tool.

Francis Galton: Eugenics and Modern Medicine

Galton’s political beliefs evidently undermined the rigour of his qualitative claims. What is less discussed …

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Drawing of a statue framed by two columns shaped like several smaller statues

Rhodes is not a Colossus

Rhodes wanted to be a colossus, and was described as such; yet his legacy, and …

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A black and white picture of a women wearing an academic gown and reading a book

‘Of Oxford … chiefly North’: Women in Oxford

A brief history of women in Oxford and their experiences studying. Oxford is a place …

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