Oxford in the Modern Era

During the 19th century, the controversy surrounding the Oxford Movement in the Anglican Church drew attention to the city as a focus of theological thought.

Oxford's rapid expansion and the development of its railway links after the 1840s provided a further boost to the city's brewing trade, which by 1874 boasted nine breweries and 13 brewers' agents.

In May 1897 the future King Edward VII opened the current Town Hall, the site of which has been the seat of local government since 1292.

On 6th May 1954, Roger Bannister, a 25 year old medical and former University of Oxford student, ran the first authenticated four-minute mile at Oxford's Iffley Road running track.

By the early 20th century Oxford's population and industrial sector were expanding rapidly, with its printing and publishing industries becoming prominent by the 1920s. During the same decade, William Morris set up the Morris Motor Company, whose mass car production resulted in a huge socio-economic transformation in Oxford. By the early 1970s the Morris Motors and Pressed Steel Fisher plants – both based in Cowley – employed over 20,000 workers, and the city was divided into two distinct halves: the university city to the west of Magdalen Bridge and the car town to the east.

The decline of British Leyland during the 1980s and 90s brought major job losses to Cowley, with much of its original car manufacturing facility being pulled down in the 1990s. However, Cowley now produces the successful New MINI for BMW on a smaller site, and the demolished area has been redeveloped into the Oxford Business Park.

In 1991 Oxford Brookes University, having previously been the Oxford School of Art, then Oxford Polytechnic, was given its charter and named after the school's founding principal, John Henry Brookes.

The influx of migrant labour to the car plants and hospitals has combined with the city's large student population and recent immigration from south Asia to give the city a cosmopolitan distinctiveness. Oxford is one of the most diverse small cities in Britain, with over a quarter of its population from ethnic minority groups.