Oxford Union


The Oxford Union Society is a debating society in the city of Oxford, England, whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest university unions and is widely considered as one of the world's most prestigious private students' societies. The Oxford Union exists independently from the university and is distinct from the Oxford University Student Union.
The Oxford Union has a tradition of hosting some of the world's most prominent individuals across politics, academia, and popular culture ranging from Albert Einstein and Elton John to Sir Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, Queen Elizabeth II and Mahathir Mohamad. Many former Presidents of the Union have gone on to hold high office in the UK and the Commonwealth including William Gladstone, Ted Heath, Boris Johnson, and Benazir Bhutto.

History and status

Genesis

The Oxford Union was founded as the United Debating Society, an independent forum for unrestricted debate by junior members of Oxford University in 1823. At the time, the university prohibited junior members from discussing certain issues, such as matters of theology. Although restrictions of speech within the university have since been lifted, the Oxford Union has remained separate from and independent of the university and is constitutionally bound to remain so.
The first meeting of the Society was held illegally in a room in Peckwater Quad at Christ Church. The first recorded debate was about Parliamentarianism vs Royalism during the English Civil War. By the late 1820s, the Oxford Union was established enough to have regular elections, a growing collection of books, and formalised relations with its sister society The Cambridge Union. In the early 1830s, the Union held its first debate on having confidence in HM Government, a tradition that is continued to this day. As the Society developed, it bought a plot of land by Frewin Court in central Oxford and commissioned Benjamin Woodward, who was then working on the University Museum, to design new buildings for the Society's use. These initial buildings opened in 1857, included the original debating chamber. By the 1870s, the Society had grown too large for the chamber and commissioned a new chamber by Alfred Waterhouse. Finished in 1878 and opened the following year, the Union's new Debating Chamber was the largest purpose-built debating chamber in the world. The original chamber became the Society's library and is now home to over 60,000 volumes. A further period of building began in the early 1900s when an extension was built between the Steward's House and the main premises of the Society.

Status

The Oxford Union is an unincorporated association; its property is held in trust in favour of its objectives and members, and governed by its rules. Its members are almost exclusively drawn from the University of Oxford with some provision for members who are resident in Oxford or attend Oxford Brookes University.

Women members

Until 1963, women were excluded from membership of the Oxford Union. The admission of women to the Union required a 2/3 vote of its voting past and current members. The first vote to admit women failed, with 903 men voting to admit women and 459 voting against. The second vote, on 9 February 1963, succeeded, 1,039 to 427. Oxford student Judith Okely, who had led the campaign to admit women, then became the first woman member. Geraldine Jones of St Hugh's College was in 1967 the first woman to be elected President of the Oxford Union.

Notable debates

1933: King and Country debate

The Oxford Union has long associated itself with freedom of speech, most famously by debating and passing the motion "That this House would under no circumstances fight for its King and country" in 1933. The debate polarised opinion across the country, with the Daily Telegraph running an article headlined "DISLOYALTY AT OXFORD: GESTURE TOWARDS THE REDS".
Several prominent union members tried to expunge this motion and the result of the debate from the union's minute book. This attempt was defeated in a meeting more attended than the original debate. Sir Edward Heath records in his memoirs that Churchill was then chased around Oxford by undergraduates who intended to debag him, and was then fined by the police for being illegally parked.

1964: Extremism debate

In 1964, the Oxford Union invited American civil rights activist Malcolm X to speak on the motion, "This House Believes Extremism in Defence of Liberty is no Vice; Moderation in the Pursuit of Justice is no Virtue".

1975: EEC membership debate

On June 3, 1975, two days before the referendum on remaining in the European Communities, BBC1 televised A Question of Europe, a live debate hosted by the union on the motion "That this House Would Say Yes to Europe" with former Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath and Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe speaking in favour and Labour ministers Barbara Castle and Peter Shore against.

1985: Nuclear armament debate

In 1985, David Lange, prime minister of New Zealand, debated against the American evangelist Jerry Falwell the motion "This House Believes Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible." Lange was invited to the debate by New Zealander Jeya Wilson, who was later elected president of the union.

2025: Israel–Palestine debate

In November 2024, the Union under president Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy, hosted the debate "This House Believes Israel is an Apartheid State Responsible for Genocide", voting for the motion by a margin of 278 to 59. The debate triggered intense scrutiny from the moment of its inception and for many months following its conclusion, including being the subject of extensive media attention from both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel factions, with debate on the motion even reaching the House of Commons. The debate saw comparison to the King and Country debate decades before, and the Union's trustees threatened to remove OUS from the Frewin Court buildings if they uploaded the full speech of Susan Abulhawa, before the standing committee defied the trustees' threat and voted to upload Abulhawa's speech in full. Abulhawa's speech remains available to watch on the Union's YouTube channel.

Notable speakers

The Union puts on a wide variety of events for its members but is best known for its Thursday night debates and individual speaker events. In both of these, leading figures from public life are invited to discuss something of interest to the membership. Amongst the earliest individual addresses made to the Union were speeches given by Lord Randolph Churchill at the start of the 20th Century and Millicent Fawcett who became the first woman to address the Oxford Union in 1908.
Since then notable speakers to have addressed the members of the Oxford Union include:
Membership of the Oxford Union falls into four classes: life membership, long-term membership, temporary membership, and residential membership. Temporary membership can take four forms: course-length membership, termly membership, visiting membership, and permanent membership. The overwhelming majority of members are life members; the criterion for membership is being a fully matriculated member of the University of Oxford or a member of one of the Union's "kindred societies", namely:
All those eligible for life membership can instead apply for long-term membership for a period of at least the duration of their course.
Shorter membership is also extended to staff members of the University of Oxford or of any of its colleges or permanent private halls. Members of a number of other institutions, together with those participating in some visiting study programmes in Oxford, are also eligible to apply for temporary membership.
Guests staying at the Oxford Union Society/Landmark Trust flat in the Old Steward's House are deemed to be visiting members of the Society for the duration of their stay in the flat. Residential memberships are available to Oxford residents who are not from the university, but only if they are deemed worthy by a full meeting of the Union's Standing Committee after submitting a written application to the Secretary and subsequent interview by a member of the Standing Committee.