University of Cambridge

In 1209 scholars fleeing hostile townsmen in Oxford moved to Cambridge, lodging first in the town and later in hostels under a Master. Cambridge was by then a thriving commercial community and county town with at least one notable school. By 1226 the scholars had an organization led by a Chancellor and ran regular courses taught by their own members.⁠[1]

Students, typically aged about 14 or 15, clashed with townspeople, who in turn were accused of overcharging for rooms and food. By 1231 King Henry III had taken the scholars under his protection and ordered that only students enrolled under a recognized master could remain in the town, securing the scholars a teaching monopoly.⁠[1]

Medieval students began with an arts foundation course in grammar, logic and rhetoric, then studied arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy on the way to bachelor’s and master’s degrees. There were no professors: masters licensed by the whole university taught by reading and explaining texts, and examinations took the form of oral disputations. Degrees were conferred by the whole body of masters, with the Chancellor acting for them and later the Vice-Chancellor as his deputy. The earliest known version of the University’s statutes is a mid-thirteenth-century copy held in the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome.⁠[2]

The University’s list of Chancellors begins with Hugh de Hottun, c. 1246.⁠[3]

In 1284 the Bishop of Ely founded Peterhouse, the first College. Mary, Countess of Pembroke, founded Pembroke College in 1347; King Henry VI laid the first stone of King’s College Chapel in 1446; and Robert Woodlark founded St Catharine’s College in 1473.⁠[4]

Most early scholars were clerks in holy orders and were at first subject to the Archdeacon and the Bishop of Ely. Before the end of the fifteenth century they had become independent of all ecclesiastical authority except the Pope’s: the Chancellor became an ecclesiastical judge in his own right, hearing cases on scholars’ morals and discipline and proving the wills of those who died in residence, and he also held a secular court for scholars’ civil and criminal cases other than major crimes. The Crown gave the University the right to act against market profiteers and to enforce the assize of bread and ale.⁠[5]

In 1381 University property in the town was attacked, which the University attributes partly to resentment of this interference. After a royal inquiry into the disturbances, the Chancellor received wider jurisdiction to prosecute profiteers, those falsifying weights and measures, those adulterating food and drink, those interrupting fresh water supplies and those deliberately spreading infection during plague, as well as authority over lawsuits arising at markets and fairs. Most of these rights ended in the nineteenth century, though the University still holds some policing and licensing responsibilities.⁠[5]

Lady Margaret Beaufort founded St John’s College in 1511. Henry VIII’s injunctions of 1536 suppressed the Faculty of Canon Law and banned the study of scholastic philosophy, after which Greek and Latin classics, mathematics and Biblical studies rose in prominence. Henry VIII also endowed five Regius professorships, in divinity, Hebrew, Greek, physic and civil law, which highlighted changes in teaching methods and set an example for private donors. In 1546 he founded Trinity College from King’s Hall and Michaelhouse.⁠[4][6]

In the same period Dr Caius turned Gonville Hall into Gonville and Caius College, Emmanuel and Sidney Sussex took over the Dominican and Franciscan sites, and Magdalene absorbed Buckingham College, a former Benedictine house of studies. These colleges trained men for the priesthood of the national church, while Trinity in particular drew large numbers of lay students for the first time.⁠[6]

Successive monarchs intervened in the universities, which they saw as training future leaders of the reformed church. The Statutes of 1570 moved authority away from the Regent Masters and Proctors toward the Vice-Chancellor and the Heads of Colleges. Royal influence continued through Privy Council orders and mandate degrees until the early eighteenth century.⁠[6]

In 1584 Cambridge University Press began an unbroken record of annual publishing that continues today.⁠[4]

In 1600 William Gilbert of St John’s published De Magnete, and in 1628 William Harvey published his treatise on the circulation of the blood. John Milton entered Christ’s in 1625 and studied there until 1632. John Harvard entered Emmanuel College in 1627 and in 1638 endowed the college in Cambridge, Massachusetts.⁠[4]

Isaac Newton came to the University as a student in 1661, graduated in 1665 and held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics from 1669 to 1701. In 1687 he published Principia Mathematica.⁠[7][4]

Prince Albert was elected Chancellor in 1847, and in 1850 a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the University of OxfordUniversity of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university in Oxford, England, where teaching existed in some form by 1096; it describes itself as the oldest university in the English-speaking world and is organised as a federal system of the university and dozens of self-governing colleges.Open the full entry and the University of Cambridge; its report led to new Statutes under the Cambridge University Act of 1856. Ultimate authority lay at first with the Senate and later passed to the Regent House, whose members elect part of the Council, while the General Board of the Faculties, responsible for curriculum and examinations, began in 1882.⁠[8]

Natural sciences and moral sciences Triposes were approved in 1851, the year the Disney Professorship of archaeology became the first new professorship; before 1900 Triposes in law, history, theology, several languages and mechanical sciences followed. Matriculations rose from 441 in 1850 to 1,191 in 1910, and Downing, Selwyn and St Edmund’s were founded during the century.⁠[8]

Girton (1869) and Newnham (1872) were founded to prepare women for the Tripos, and the first women were examined in 1882. From the 1860s the Colleges also gradually allowed Fellows to marry.⁠[8]

The Cavendish Laboratory was endowed in 1870 at a total cost of £8,450, with William Cavendish, Seventh Duke of Devonshire and Chancellor of the University, providing £6,300 for the building. James Clerk Maxwell returned in 1871 as the first Cavendish Professor of Physics and in 1873 published his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. The laboratory opened in 1874 under Maxwell’s direction; Maxwell died in 1879 at the age of 48 and was succeeded by Lord Rayleigh.⁠[4][9]

J. J. Thomson succeeded Rayleigh at the Cavendish Laboratory in 1884, discovered the electron in 1897 and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906; in 1919 he was succeeded by his former student Rutherford. In 1912 Lawrence Bragg had the idea that led to the discovery of X-ray diffraction, and in 1915 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with his father.⁠[9][4]

During the First World War 13,878 members of the University served and 2,470 were killed; teaching income collapsed and the University faced severe financial difficulty. It received systematic state support from 1919, and a 1920 Royal Commission recommended an annual grant for the University (not the Colleges) and a reorganization under which the University took over lectures and practical teaching while the Colleges kept responsibility for individual teaching.⁠[8]

The PhD was introduced in 1921 but grew slowly at first.⁠[8]

In 1932 the atom was split at Cambridge, work recognized with a Nobel Prize in 1951: Cockcroft and Walton at the Cavendish Laboratory produced the first controlled nuclear disintegrations induced by accelerated high-energy particles. James Chadwick also discovered the neutron at the laboratory.⁠[4][9]

In 1937 Dorothy Garrod became the University’s first woman professor.⁠[4]

Attempts to make women full members of the University had been repeatedly defeated. The change to the Statutes admitting them was approved by Grace on December 6, 1947 and by Order in Council on April 27, 1948, and the first women were admitted to degrees in the Senate-House later in 1948, giving women and men in Cambridge the equal status that had long been sought.⁠[10][8]

In 1949 Wilkes developed the EDSAC computer. In 1953 Crick and Watson determined the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule at the Cavendish Laboratory.⁠[4][9]

Sanger won the first of his two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry in 1958 and the second in 1980. In 1962 Perutz established the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.⁠[4]

Development accelerated after the Second World War, drawing students to the University and to government-sponsored institutions in the town, which became a city in 1951. In the 1950s and 1960s the Chemistry and Engineering buildings were replaced and the arts faculties gained permanent premises for the first time, notably on the Sidgwick Avenue Site, while a new regional general hospital south of the city, replacing the old Addenbrooke’s Hospital, became the base for the medical departments and a new School of Clinical Medicine.⁠[11]

New Hall (now Murray Edwards College) was founded in 1954 as a third women’s College, followed by Churchill (1960) and Robinson (1977). In the 1960s Darwin, Wolfson, Clare Hall and Lucy Cavendish were founded as Colleges for fellows and research students, and Hughes Hall, St Edmund’s and Homerton were recognized as Colleges. The older men’s Colleges began admitting women students and appointing women Fellows, while Newnham and New Hall remain women-only.⁠[11]

In 1968 Hewish and Bell discovered pulsars, and Hewish later received the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1974 the Cavendish Laboratory completed its move to a site west of the city; the West Cambridge area now also houses the Computer Laboratory and the Centre for Nanoscience.⁠[4][9][11]

In 1975 Trinity College founded England’s first science park, the Cambridge Science Park. The University’s Industrial Liaison Office began in the 1970s with support from the Wolfson Foundation and later became the Research Office.⁠[4][11]

The Cambridge Foundation was formed in 1989 with the aim of raising £250 million over ten years. In 2000 the Gates Scholarships went live with a $210 million endowment and development began on the West Cambridge Site. In 2005 the 800th anniversary appeal set a target of £1 billion by 2012, and in 2009 the University celebrated its 800th anniversary.⁠[4]

In 1994 the University became one of the 17 founding members of the Russell Group, whose name comes from the Hotel Russell in London where the founding universities met.⁠[12][13]

Deborah Prentice took office as the University’s 347th Vice-Chancellor on July 1, 2023. She joined Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry in 1988, where she was Head of the Department of Psychology for twelve years, served three years as Dean of the Faculty and six years as Provost, and held the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professorship of Psychology and Public Affairs. She earned a first degree in Human Biology and Music at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry and a PhD in Psychology at Yale UniversityYale UniversityYale University is a research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Its predecessor, the Collegiate School, received a charter in 1701. Trustees chose New Haven in 1716; the institution became Yale College in 1718 and Yale University in 1887. Yale provides undergraduate, graduate and professional education and has 14 undergraduate residential colleges. As of October 2026, its president was Maurie McInnis, who took office in July 2024. In 2026, Yale expanded aid for incoming undergraduates and celebrated its 325th anniversary.Open the full entry.⁠[14]

In 2024 the University’s scientists deployed Dawn, which the University describes as the UK’s most powerful AI supercomputer.⁠[4]

The Ray Dolby Centre, the Cavendish Laboratory’s new home, was officially opened on May 9, 2025 by Dagmar Dolby, Deborah Prentice, Head of the Cavendish Laboratory Mete Atatüre and Spencer Livermore, Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Minister for Growth. Its funding included an £85 million donation from the estate of Cambridge alumnus and sound pioneer Ray Dolby and £75 million from the UK government through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).⁠[15]

The centre contains 173 laboratories along with lecture halls, learning and collaborative spaces, workshops, cleanrooms and offices. Much of the building is open to the public, with a café and outreach and exhibition spaces organized around six courtyards, and it also houses the Cavendish Museum and the EPSRC National Facility CORDE.⁠[15]

The election for Chancellor was held from July 9 to 18, 2025, with ten candidates; for the first time voting was opened online, and more than 23,000 alumni and staff took part, while almost 2,000 more voted in person at Senate House. Chris Smith, Lord Smith of Finsbury, was elected the 109th Chancellor for a ten-year term. He had been Master of Pembroke College since 2015, stepping down at the end of July 2025, and is a former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and chaired the Environment Agency from 2008 to 2014.⁠[16]

On March 16, 2026 Lord Smith was installed at a Congregation in the Senate-House, where Deborah Prentice confirmed his election and administered the oath of office; the previous installation ceremony had been held in 2012 for Lord Sainsbury of Turville.⁠[17]

The University gives a total of 24,927 students for 2025–2026, and its website lists 13,113 staff in academic, academic-related, contract research, technical and administrative roles.⁠[18]

For the year ended July 31, 2025, the University group’s total consolidated income was £2,660 million (2024: £2,631 million) and research grants and contracts income was £605.0 million; at July 31, 2025, consolidated net assets were £8,263 million and the net asset value of the Cambridge University Endowment Fund was £4,606.8 million.⁠[19]

The University has 31 autonomous Colleges with their own statutes and regulations. Each selects its own students within University regulations and provides small-group supervisions for undergraduates, and College representatives sit on the University Council and Finance Committee. Students belong both to an academic Faculty or Department and to a College.⁠[20]

The six Schools are Arts and Humanities, Biological Sciences, Clinical Medicine, Humanities and Social Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Technology; each has a Council and is represented on the General Board. Outside the Schools, Cambridge University Press & Assessment publishes content and runs exams used in more than 170 countries, and the Institute of Continuing Education, founded in 1873, offers over 250 courses; Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment joined as one organization in 2021. The Vice-Chancellorship has been a full-time position since 1992.⁠[20][4][21]

Chancellors elected between 1948 and 2011 were Jan Christiaan Smuts (1948), Lord Tedder (1951), Lord Adrian (1967), Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1977) and Lord Sainsbury of Turville (2011).⁠[3]

Recent Vice-Chancellors were Michael McCrum (1987–88), David Williams (1989–96), Lord Broers (1996–2003), Alison Richard (2003–10), Leszek Borysiewicz (2010–17), Stephen Toope (2017–2022) and Anthony Freeling as acting Vice-Chancellor (2022–2023).⁠[21]

The University states that 126 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to its members, in a list of laureates that runs to 2025. The earliest entry is Lord Rayleigh of Trinity College, awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering argon, and Dorothy Hodgkin was the first woman from Cambridge to win a Nobel Prize. In 2024 Demis HassabisDemis HassabisDemis Hassabis is a British artificial intelligence researcher and entrepreneur, co-founder of DeepMind and its CEO and that of Google DeepMind from 2010 to 2026, and since then Chair of Google DeepMind, Chief Scientist of Alphabet and CEO of Isomorphic Labs; a former chess prodigy and game designer, he shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with John Jumper for AlphaFold’s protein structure prediction, and has appeared twice on the Lex Fridman Podcast.Open the full entry and John Jumper received the Chemistry prize and Geoffrey HintonGeoffrey HintonMachine learning researcher.Open the full entry the Physics prize; in 2025 John Clarke shared the Physics prize with Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis.⁠[22]

Thirty-one affiliates of the Cavendish Laboratory have been awarded the Nobel Prize.⁠[15]

The University’s arms were granted in 1573 by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux King of Arms, and are blazoned “Gules on a Cross Ermine between four Lions passant guardant Or a Bible fesswise Gules clasped and garnished Or.” The motto, “Hinc lucem et pocula sacra,” literally “From here, light and sacred draughts,” is not part of the original grant.⁠[23]

University of Cambridge: Official website: https://www.cam.ac.uk/ (opens in a new window).⁠[24]

X: Public account: https://x.com/cambridge_uni (opens in a new window).⁠[25]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/school/4522 (opens in a new window).⁠[25]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/cambridgeuniversity (opens in a new window).⁠[25]