The first 21 students from Somerville and Lady Margaret Hall attended lectures in rooms above a baker's shop on Little Clarendon Street.

The college was named after Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII, patron of scholarship and learning.

It was a charitable initiative, originally a place for graduates from the college to live in North Lambeth where they would work with and help develop opportunities for the poor.

[25] Also in 2017, prospective Chemistry student Brian White faced deportation at the hands of the Home Office,[26] but was able to take up his place at the college.

[29] Modelled after a programme at Trinity College, Dublin,[31] the four-year pilot scheme began in 2016 with 10 students,[28][32] seven of whom went on to study at Oxford, with the other three receiving offers from different Russell Group universities.

[28] It was praised by David Lammy, a Labour MP who said the foundation year is "exactly the sort of thing that needs to be done", and by Les Ebdon, director of Office for Fair Access, who described the programme as "innovative and important".

[33] On the North West side the Donald Fothergill Building (2017) contains student accommodation while the Clore Graduate Centre (2017) extends further out to the South East towards the University Parks.

The recent expansion designed by John Simpson Architects was modelled after the Porta Maggiore in Rome, in conjunction with the simple façade of the Wolfson West building.

The MCR, located in the Clore Graduate Centre, is named after the first female Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, who studied at the college from 1973 to 1977.

He used the French Renaissance style of the 17th century for the buildings and chose red brick with white stone facings, setting a tone the college was to continue to follow in later work.

On the North West is the Lynda Grier building (1962) housing the college library;[39] this was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1961.

[40] The ground floor of Lynda Grier was originally student accommodation but in 2006 it was converted into a law library, which was opened that year by Cherie Blair.

Since 2016 the library has also featured a feminist book collection curated by Associate Fellow Emma Watson, called "Our Shared Shelf".

[42] The Briggs room originally contained the entire archive of rare and antiquarian books donated to the college over the years.

The first phase of the recent plan to expand the college, the Pipe Partridge Building, was completed in early 2010 and was opened by the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Lord Patten of Barnes, in April 2010.

[45] The Pipe Partridge Building includes the 136-seat Simpkins Lee Theatre,[46] a dining hall, seminar rooms and 64 new undergraduate study bedrooms.

[48] To the northeast extends the large Deneke Building (1932) along with the hall and the college's Byzantine-style chapel where the choir practises and carol services are held in Michaelmas term.

[49] The chapel is in the form of a Greek cross and was dedicated by the college's founder Edward Stuart Talbot, in January 1933.

The grounds include a set of playing fields, netball and tennis courts, a punt house, topiary, and large herbaceous planting schemes along with vegetable borders.

In 2022, Lady Margaret Hall was the first Oxford college to sign a government-backed pledge on ending non-disclosure agreements in cases of sexual misconduct.

One undergraduate said that she was threatened with expulsion if she spoke about being raped by a man who was previously reported to the college for sexual violence, and was made to sign a confidentiality agreement by the then Principal Alan Rusbridger.

[54] The college initially disputed the undergraduate's claim, but under Rusbridger's successor Christine Gerrard settled the case[55] and paid damages to the woman.

[59] On multiple years including 2018 and 2019, members of the club have rowed in The Boat Race, an annual competition between Oxford and Cambridge.

[62] The college's art collection includes works by:[citation needed] The college's coat of arms features devices that recall those associated with its foundation:[citation needed] The original coat of arms consisted of three daisies intertwined and bore the motto "Ex solo ad solem", meaning "From the earth to the sun", and can be seen to adorn Talbot Hall, and the Wordsworth and Toynbee buildings.

Lectures in this series included "Goethe on nature and science" in 1942 by Nobel laureate Charles Scott Sherrington,[64] and in 1933, Albert Einstein gave the talk "Einiges zur atomistic", concluding the address as follows: "The deeper we search, the more we find there is to know, and as long as humanity exists I believe it will always be so.

It had been the Professor's magnetism that held my attention.In Phillip Pullman's The Secret Commonwealth, the character Lyra Belacqua attends an Oxford college, St Sophia's, which bears many similarities to Lady Margaret Hall: from its location on the map seen in "Lyra's Oxford" to being one of the first colleges to offer women an education.

[69] Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay includes a St Simeon's College, located approximately on the site of Lady Margaret Hall.

[75] A Great Western Railway 6959 Class locomotive named Lady Margaret Hall, number 7911, was built in 1950.

[citation needed] In Trinity term, a spiral of wildflowers are planted, creating a grass walkway into the centre of the quad.

[citation needed] There is a circular wooden bench dedicated to Iris Murdoch in the college gardens where she used to go walking.