The history boys (and girls)

As every well-educated person knows, Oxford University graduates typically go on to make history. But until publication of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography this wasn't easy to prove.

The dictionary—a research and publishing project of Oxford University and OUP—first appeared in print and online in 2004, with regular online updates since 2005. The Oxford DNB currently includes biographies of 56,430 men and women (all deceased) who shaped every aspect of British history worldwide from the fourth century BC to 2004.

As Oxford alumni you are in distinguished company. The Oxford DNB includes biographies of more than 7800 men and women who were members of the university, from the thirteenth-century archbishop Edmund of Abingdon to the developmental biologist Rosa Beddington (1956–2001).

Below you'll find a college-by-college selection of Oxford students and fellows recorded in the Oxford DNB. Click on the name to read the life in full.

If you like what you see: you can read these and 56,400 other biographies—for free and at home—via nearly all UK public libraries and at colleges and universities worldwide.

Our Open Shelves also offer a free Life of the Day and biography podcast. Information on personal subscriptions and purchasing the print edition is also available.

Oxford DNB alumni by college: A-C E-J K-M N-Q St-Som T-W

All Souls In 1931 Quentin Hogg, later second Viscount Hailsham and Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone, was elected to a prize fellowship in law at All Souls: 'Academic success came easily to the young Hogg; and something of the schoolboy—often engaging, sometimes infuriating, and usually untidy in appearance—remained with him for most of his life. Some found him conceited and arrogant, but many shared Lord Birkenhead's assessment of him as "one of the most brilliant people of his age in England".'

Balliol Sent down from Balliol for being a 'corrupting influence', Neil 'Bunny' Roger made his name as a man of fashion: 'Another favourite bon mot was "When in doubt powder heavily", believed to have been used when his sergeant became agitated about an impending German attack.' Bunny Roger's life is also available as an episode in the ODNB's free biography podcast.

Brasenose Jan Bussell left Brasenose, without taking his degree, in search of a life on the stage. He quickly became hooked on marionette theatre and, with his wife, formed Hogarth Puppets—creators of the children's favourite Muffin the Mule in the late 1920s.

Christ Church The politician Benjamin Hall matriculated at Christ Church in 1820 and is now remembered as the eponymist of Westminster's Big Ben. In 1856 the bell, with Hall's name inscribed on it, was cast but cracked. The substitute was also defective but worked sufficiently well to be hung in 1858; it was named Big Ben and rings to this day.

Corpus Christi Between 1747 and 1750 David Hartley studied classics and medicine at Corpus. Later an MP, he also dabbled as an amateur scientist and his Proposals for the Security of Spectators in any Public Theatre against Fire probably led to the installation of the first theatre safety curtain.

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Exeter At Exeter John Whitehead Peard (1829-33) was a distinguished sportsman blessed with 'the shoulders of a bull'. In adulthood he became a lawyer (at one Lincoln's Inn gaudy he drained a two-quart loving cup of wine) and later a soldier for the Italian patriot Garibaldi, earning him the nickname Garibaldi's Englishman.

Green The psychiatrist Anthony Storr became Green College's first fellow librarian in 1979. Storr did not publish his first book until 1960, when he was forty. 'I just felt the need to explain to myself what the hell I thought I was doing. For me, that is the motive for writing anything.'

Harris Manchester Gertrude von Petzold entered Manchester College in 1901 where she became the first woman to train for the Unitarian ministry in England.

Hertford The author Evelyn Waugh arrived at Hertford in 1922: 'He learned to smoke a pipe, bought a bicycle, gave his maiden speech at the Oxford Union, and for two terms led a blameless existence rather like Paul Pennyfeather in Decline and Fall. He even passed his preliminary examination in history. All this changed when Harold Acton came up in the autumn.'

Jesus Gambler and zoo owner John Aspinall entered Jesus College in 1947 but proved a neglectful student, more attuned to the 'despair and exhilaration of gambling', in which he indulged with his new associate, James Goldsmith.

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Keble Joseph Cooper, Keble's organ scholar in 1931, later found fame with his 'dummy keyboard', on which he played silent tunes for the popular quiz show Face the Music.

Lady Margaret Hall Ella Sykes, one of LMH's first students, followed her studies with the first of what became many expeditions, publishing Through Persia on a Side-Saddle in 1898. It was, she later wrote, her obligation to 'help girls of high stamp to seek their fortunes beyond the seas—women who will care for our glorious flag and what it signifies'.

Lincoln Zeeland-born diarist Alexander Daniell studied for a year at Lincoln before being removed by his father for 'extravagance' in 1618. Later a Cornish resident, his tomb is marked with the epitaph: 'Belgia me birth, Britain me breeding gave, Cornwall a wife, ten children, and a grave.'

Magdalen Thomas Bodley entered Magdalen College in 1559 and, after a distinguished academic and diplomatic career, went on to found a rather good Oxford library.

Mansfield During the 1890s James Shaver Woodsworth spent a year at Mansfield College studying Christian ethics; Woodward later became one of Canada's leading socialist politicians, instrumental in bringing state pensions to that country in the 1920s.

Merton While at Merton (1934-38) Reg Maudling, later Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary, took little interest in student politics but did, it's said, excel at ice skating.

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New After graduating from New College in 1929 the legal philosopher H.L.A. Hart had a distinguished university career much enjoyed by generations of students: 'The lectures were crowded and were heard with rapt attention, though with some apprehension, as the audience saw the lecturer shuffle from distance to reading glasses, wipe them, mislay them and rediscover their whereabouts, all the while expounding a complex argument.'

Nuffield Between 1961 and 1962 the civil servant Sir Lawrence Airey held a research fellowship at Nuffield: 'As a prominent pre-Fulton civil service generalist he was provoked into an incautious aside at a meeting with Margaret Thatcher soon after she became prime minister. Mrs Thatcher had been taking the civil service to task in her formidable style. The permanent secretary of the Ministry of Defence left the room temporarily, and the prime minister asked where he had gone. "To fetch the SAS", said Sir Lawrence in a stage whisper. That exchange, that clash of cultures, signified that the post-1945 Whitehall consensus had ended.'

Oriel One of Oriel's academically less distinguished alumni is George 'Beau' Brummell who lasted just one term at the college in 1793. It was said that all he took from Oxford was mastery of the 'cut': the English art of ignoring people while fully aware of their presence.

Pembroke John Henderson matriculated in 1781 from Pembroke, where 'he attracted notice at once: partly for having unfashionably small shoe buckles … but mainly for his wide, unconventional learning, quick discernment, and powers of reasoning.'

Queen's After studying at Queen's in the early 1760s, Henry Bate Dudley took holy orders but did nothing to moderate the passion for duelling that led to him being dubbed the Fighting Parson. Bate's combative style was later evident as a notorious newspaper editor dedicated to metropolitan gossip.

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St Anne's Michael Dillon is unusual in having graduated from St Anne's with a third in Greats in 1938, when St Anne's was still a women's college; Dillon's occupational headword in the Oxford DNB—transsexual and Buddhist monk—explains all.

St Antony's The historian Timothy Mason was both a graduate student and a research fellow during the 1960s at St Antony's, where he became a specialist on German Nazism: 'There were in his life tensions which were perhaps never resolved. He was, for instance, a familiar figure to many in his Hamburg docker's cap. Less familiar, particularly as he grew older, was the cricketer or tennis player in his carefully pressed whites—unique among the sportsmen of St Antony's College.'

St Catherine's The political philosopher Maurice Cranston graduated from St Catherine's with a second in PPE in 1948: 'Cranston's life at this time might be seen reflected in the characters of his two amusing and stylish detective novels published in 1946: Tomorrow We'll be Sober and Philosopher's Hemlock.'

St Cross Richard Blackwell, the bookseller, became a fellow of St Cross in 1978: 'In all business enterprises he ensured the ultimate control by the Blackwell family. It was not only a question of seeing his inheritance multiply, it was also his intention that the family business should remain wholly independent and private.'

St Edmund Hall James Chetham, a Teddy Hall student from about 1657 to 1660, is now best known for his The angler's vade-mecum, or, A compendious, yet full discourse of angling … together with a brief discourse of fish ponds.

St Hilda's The scholar Beryl Smalley studied at St Hilda's between 1924 and 1927; 'by her own account … a wayward student, inclined only to such subjects as ecclesiastical and diplomatic history', she later became a fellow of the college.

St Hugh's Anne Pellew, aeronautical engineer and glider pilot, was one of the first women to study engineering science at Oxford, graduating with a first from St Hugh's in 1939. She gave up gliding in her sixties after being forced to bale out, taking instead to fly fishing and snooker.

St John's Despite his poor Oxford record (lasting just one term at St John's) John Fothergill achieved fame as the innkeeper of the Spreadeagle at Thame, Oxfordshire. He is said to have single-handedly made the profession smart and respectable in the twentieth century.

St Peter's The Anglican clergyman W.V. Awdry read history at St Peter's from where he graduated in 1932. He is now best known as the author of the Railway series, twenty-six children's books about steam engines (led by Thomas the Tank Engine) on the island of Sodor.

Somerville Dorothy L. Sayers studied French at the college and graduated with a first-class degree in 1915: 'Somerville, with its tradition of nurturing strong women who go on to leadership roles in the public arena as well as the arts, suited Sayers perfectly. Her college days were among her happiest.'

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Trinity Henry Balfour (second in natural science, Trinity, 1885) later achieved note both as curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum and an amateur boomerang thrower. The latter activity was curtailed by university statute after Balfour accidentally struck a nanny out walking in the University Parks.

University Noted in his youth as a 'first-rate scholar', Edmund Cartwright (University, 1757-59) later achieved distinction as a classicist, poet, churchman, and the inventor of the power loom—the basic design for which remained unchanged until the Sulzer loom of the twentieth century.

Wadham Josefa Lalabalavu Vaanialialia Sukuna, by birth one of Fiji's most exalted chiefs, entered Wadham in 1913, left in 1915 to serve in the French Foreign Legion, and returned to Oxford in 1919 to graduate in law.

Wolfson In 1966 Sir Isaiah Berlin became the college's first president. 'It was renamed Wolfson College in acknowledgement of the generosity of Sir Isaac Wolfson's foundation. Berlin toyed with the thought that "St Isaac's" might be apt, but only privately.'

Worcester James Moore Smythe matriculated from Worcester in 1717 where, as 'Jemmy' he gained a reputation as a man of fashion. In adulthood Smythe's plays prompted Alexander Pope to describe him as having: 'A brain of feathers and a heart of lead'.

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