The Museum of
Oxford is located in Oxford's historic Town Hall, a Grade One listed building
of 1894 on the site of a series of historic buildings including Oxford's 18th-century
Town Hall, Oxford's Medieval Guildhall, and Oxford's Norman Jewry.
Building on archaeological and social history collections that had been accumulating since the late 1960s, the museum opened in 1975, displaying Oxford's history and archaeology from prehistoric times to the present, drawing on material excavated in the city, the City's outstanding collections of documents, plate and arms from Medieval, Early Modern and Civil war times, University history and collections, and 19th and 20th-century photographs, trade, industry and technology collections and period interiors from various parts of the city.
The museum has always aimed primarily to introduce Oxford's past in an interesting and educational manner through the greatest possible use of primary source material, and to set the story of the country's oldest university into the context of the much longer history of an English town.
The museum is owned and managed by Oxford City Council, drawing on the collections of County, University and City.
© 1998 Oxfordshire Museum Service,
Setúbal Museums and the Benaki Museum
