In the 1960s, Nuffield became closely associated with Harold Wilson's "modernizing" Labour government. During his tenure as Wilson's Chancellor of the Exchequer, future Labour prime minister James Callaghan, who had no formal university education, took tutorials in economics at Nuffield overseen by College fellow Ian Little. Such was the perceived intimacy between College and government that decades later, writer Christopher Hitchens could recall the "fast set that revolved between Nuffield and Whitehall".

Buildings

Nuffield is located on the site of the basin of the Oxford Canal to the west of Oxford. The land on which the college stands was formerly the city's principal canal basin and coal wharfs.

The architectural aesthetic of the final design, particularly the tower and its flèche, has attracted some criticism; unlike the other "dreaming spires" of Oxford, Nuffield's tower is a masonry-clad steel-framed book-stack. The architectural historian Sir Howard Colvin said that Harrison's first design was Oxford's "most notable architectural casualty of the 1930s"; it has also been described as a "missed opportunity" to show that Oxford did not live "only in the past". Reaction to the architecture of the college has been largely unfavourable. In the 1960s, it was described as "Oxford's biggest monument to barren reaction". The tower has been described as "ungainly", and marred by repetitive windows. The travel writer Jan Morris wrote that the college was "a hodge-podge from the start". However, the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, although unimpressed with most of the college, thought that the tower helped the Oxford skyline and predicted it would "one day be loved". The writer Simon Jenkins doubted Pevsner's prediction, and claimed that "vegetation" was the "best hope" for the tower – as well as the rest of the college.

Academics

Around a third of Nuffield's fellows hold appointments at the University of Oxford as lecturers, readers or professors. In addition, the college fully funds around a dozen "Official Fellowships", which the college views as tenured research professorships (although most also teach on the University's graduate programme), and about a dozen three-year Postdoctoral research fellows. The college also houses a number of young scholars who hold distinguished awards, such as British Academy post-doctoral fellowships, some senior research fellows and a group of research-active emeritus and honorary fellows. The college also produces works in the Nuffield Election Studies. The college is also home to the Centre for Social Investigation, an interdisciplinary research group examining inequalities and social progress in Britain.

The college was the birthplace of the "Oxford School" of Industrial Relations; it pioneered the development of cost-benefit analysis for developing countries; and it has made a major contribution to the methodology of econometrics.

Student life

All Nuffield students are members of the College Junior Common Room. Annual traditions include the Nuffield ball and Christmas Pantomime. All members of the College enjoy free lunches throughout the year. Nuffield fields men's and women's cricket and football teams, and members row for Linacre Boat Club.

People associated with Nuffield

Notable students and fellows

Many prominent people have studied at Nuffield, including Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada and former Governor of the Bank of England; Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister of India; Geoff Gallop, former Premier of Western Australia; Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist of the World Bank and President of the British Academy; and Jonathan Levin, President of Stanford University.

Notable fellows have included psephologist David Butler, political philosopher Michael Oakeshott, political theorist and economist G. D. H. Cole, researcher of inequality Tony Atkinson, and statistician David Cox, who served as Warden between 1988 and 1994. Among the college's fellows and former fellows are four Nobel Prize laureates, Philippe Aghion, John Hicks, James Mirrlees, and Amartya Sen.

Visiting fellows include Stephanie Flanders, former BBC economics editor; Tim Harford, author and economist; and George Soros, investor and philanthropist.

In 2008, a third of all economists who were fellows of the British Academy had connections to Nuffield, as did a quarter of all political science, sociology and social statistics fellows.

Visitors

The Visitor of Nuffield College is ex officio the Master of the Rolls.

<gallery class="center" widths="200px" heights="200px">

File:Flight 9.9.06b 011.jpg|Aerial view showing Nuffield College and Castle Mound at centre left

File:Nuffield College corner.jpg|College buildings at the corner of New Road and Worcester Street

File:Nuffield College From Castle Mound, Oxford - geograph.org.uk - 1614860.jpg|Nuffield College from the top of Castle Mound

File:Nuffield College quad.jpg|Sculptures and a pond in the Quad

File:Nuffield west gate.jpg|The west gate

</gallery>

References

;Notes

;References

;Bibliography

  • Virtual Tour of Nuffield College