The Chichele Lectures are a series of lectures sponsored by All Souls College, Oxford and are an example of the college's use of its income for the general benefit of the University of Oxford.
The series began formally in 1912, but the idea that All Souls College, Oxford might sponsor an independent series of academic lectures can be dated back to 1873, or even earlier.
This series of lectures, separate from the professorships, can be traced to a proposal made in 1873 by Thomas Ryburn Buchanan that the college invite a distinguished foreign professor to lecture.
In 1919, the College widened the lecture to include law, political theory, or economic, as well as foreign and British history.
The lectures have normally been given in the Old Library at All Souls, but in 1959 it was moved for the first time to accommodate the great crowd drawn by Field Marshall Montgomery.