The

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

has three statutory professorships named after

William of Wykeham William of Wykeham (; 1320 or 1324 – 27 September 1404) was Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England. He founded New College, Oxford, and New College School in 1379, and founded Winchester College in 1382. He was also the clerk of ...

, who founded New College.

Logic

The Wykeham Professorship in Logic was established in 1859, although it was not known as the Wykeham chair until later. Its first chair was Henry Wall.

List of holders of post

* Henry Wall, 1849?–1870 * Thomas Fowler, 1873–1889 *

John Cook Wilson John Cook Wilson (6 June 1849 – 11 August 1915) was an English philosopher, Wykeham Professor of Logic and Fellow of New College. Early life and career John Cook Wilson was born in Nottingham, England, in 1849. He was the son of James Wil ...

, 1889–1915 * Harold Henry Joachim, 1919–1935 *

Henry Habberley Price Henry Habberley Price (17 May 1899 – 26 November 1984), usually cited as H. H. Price, was a Welsh philosopher, known for his work on the philosophy of perception. He also wrote on parapsychology. Biography Born in Neath, Glamorganshire, Wa ...

, 1935–1959 *

Alfred Jules Ayer Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer ( ; 29 October 1910 – 27 June 1989) was an English philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books '' Language, Truth, and Logic'' (1936) and ''The Problem of Knowledge'' (19 ...

, 1959–1978 *

Michael Dummett Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (; 27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." H ...

, 1979–1992 *

David Wiggins David Wiggins (born 1933) is an English moral philosopher, metaphysician, and philosophical logician working especially on identity and issues in meta-ethics. Biography David Wiggins was born on 8 March 1933 in London, the son of Norman an ...

, 1993–2000 *

Timothy Williamson Timothy Williamson (born 6 August 1955) is a British philosopher whose main research interests are in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics. He is the former Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of O ...

, 2000–2023

Ancient history

The Wykeham Professorship of Ancient History was established in 1910. It concentrates on

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

history to avoid possible duplication with the far older

Camden Professorship of Ancient History The Camden Professorship of Ancient History at the University of Oxford was established in 1622 by English antiquary and historian William Camden, Clarenceux King of Arms, and endowed with the income of the manor of Bexley, becoming the first and ...

, which focuses primarily on

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

history.

List of holders of post

* J. L. Myres, 1910–1939 *

Theodore Wade-Gery Henry Theodore Wade-Gery, (2 April 1888 – 2 January 1972), known as Theodore Wade-Gery or H. T. Wade-Gery, was a classical scholar, historian and epigrapher. From 1939 to 1953, he was Wykeham Professor of Ancient History at the University of ...

, 1939–1953 * Antony Andrewes, 1953–1977 * W. G. (George) Forrest, 1977–1992 * Robert Parker, 1996–2016 *

Nino Luraghi Nino Luraghi (born 30 November 1964) is an Italian historian of ancient Greece, who holds the Wykeham Professorship of Ancient History at Oxford University. Life Luraghi is the son of (1921–2012), an Italian resistance fighter and historian. ...

, 2018–present

Physics

The Wykeham Professorship of Physics is the only endowed chair in the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics at the

. This professorship is associated with New College.

List of holders of post

John Sealy Townsend Sir John Sealy Edward Townsend (; 7 June 1868 – 16 February 1957) was an Irish physicist who conducted various studies concerning the electrical conduction of gases (concerning the kinetics of electrons and ions) and directly measured the el ...

, 1900–1941 * Maurice Pryce, 1946–1955 *

Willis Lamb Willis Eugene Lamb Jr. (; July 12, 1913 – May 15, 2008) was an American physicist who shared the 1955 Nobel Prize in Physics with Polykarp Kusch "for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum". Lamb was able to p ...

, 1957–1962 * Sir

Rudolf Peierls Sir Rudolf Ernst Peierls, (; ; 5 June 1907 – 19 September 1995) was a German-born British physicist who played a major role in Tube Alloys, Britain's nuclear weapon programme, as well as the subsequent Manhattan Project, the combined Allied ...

, 1963–1974 * Sir Roger Elliott, 1974–1988 * David Sherrington, 1989–2008 *

Shivaji Sondhi Shivaji Lal Sondhi is an Indian-born theoretical physicist who is currently the Wykeham Professor of Physics in the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford, known for contributions to the field of quantum cond ...

, 2021–present.

Tencent Chair of Theoretical Physics

In February 2021

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

reported that the Wykeham Professorship of Physics was to be renamed "Tencent-Wykeham Professorship of Physics" following a donation, but the University later said the Wykeham Professorship of Physics will not be renamed; instead the current holder will also be given a separate post called "Tencent Chair of Theoretical Physics" to run concurrently with his Wykeham post.

References

{{Reflist Professorships at the University of Oxford Professorships in classics Professorships in history Professorships in philosophy Professorships in physics Lists of people associated with the University of Oxford