20th February 2025 10.45am, repeated 2.15pm at The Henley Rugby Club. Live transmission 10.45am only. For more information on all lectures please contact Sarah Barry on SarahBarry63@yahoo.co.uk or 07879 611782.
Liz Woolley
Report on the lecture:
The February lecture from TASH was slightly different from usual, as it was a lecture about William Morris, Viscount Nuffield, and his relationship with Oxford and particularly with the University. William Morris was born in Worcester but moved to Oxford as a child. As a teenager, he set up a bicycle repair workshop, then started building bicycles from bought-in parts, and then started making cars. He learnt from US experience on assembly lines, and greatly expanded production, setting up works in Cowley, just outside Oxford. Until 1932, he had a rather antagonistic relationship with the University. In the early 1930s, he was criticised for rather extreme political views, and, to rehabilitate his reputation, he started making donations, for health care and for education. He started by making donations to individual colleges and then determined to set up a college named after himself, Nuffield College. Building this college was delayed by the Second World War, and it was only completed in 1960. He had originally wanted his college to concentrate on engineering, but the University refused. It eventually concentrated on economic and social issues and now has a very wide influence on UK and international policy. He was knighted, then elevated to the House of Lords, and then ennobled as a Viscount. Many of his works still have great influence, including the Mini factory in Cowley, Nuffield College, but also Nuffield hospitals, the BUPA, and the Nuffield Foundation. In later life he lived in Nuffield, near Henley.
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William Morris, Lord Nuffield, probably did more than any other individual to transform Oxford in the twentieth century, physically, economically and socially.
William Richard Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield
(Please click on the blue print above to continue reading)
His success as an industrialist allowed him to become one of Britain’s most generous benefactors; he gave away the equivalent of £1.5 billion in today’s money, to causes including health, education and academic research. This talk looks specifically at Lord Nuffield’s vital support to various Oxford colleges, including the saving of St Peter’s from closure, and the founding of the college which bears his name, Nuffield College. It also explores his complex and sometimes difficult relationship with the university.
Liz Woolley is a local historian specialising in aspects of the history of Oxfordshire and Oxford. She is an experienced speaker, guide, tutor, researcher and writer who is keen to help individuals and groups to enjoy finding out about the history of their local area.
