Warden's Welcome

I am delighted to welcome you to our website. Whether you are a school student thinking of applying to Wadham College, a former student, or a visitor, I hope you will get a sense of our vibrant and varied community in these pages.

The remarkable Dorothy Wadham founded this college four hundred years ago with high ideals: to make the pursuit of learning available to ‘the poor and needy’. For her, academic excellence was not an end in itself: she believed in the power of knowledge and learning to make the world a better place. In the centuries that have followed, our academics have helped to push the boundaries of what we know and to tackle the great problems of their age. That is still what drives us today.

Against the backdrop of our beautiful buildings and magnificent gardens, you will see stories of what our students and academics are doing to fulfil this vision. We are one of the largest Colleges at Oxford, but we have a reputation for friendliness and informality. At the heart of this is our openness to people of all backgrounds, nationalities and experiences, engaged together in the pursuit of knowledge. We are especially proud of our record in promoting access to academic excellence for the brightest students, irrespective of the opportunities they have had.

I hope many of you will be inspired by this website to visit, or re-visit us, in person. We look forward to welcoming you.

Robert Hannigan, Warden