In 1850 the prime minister, Lord John Russell, asked a Royal Commission to investigate the University of Oxford;[1] however the Earl of Derby had taken over as prime minister by the time the commissioners published their report in 1852.
The statute allowed MAs of the university over the age of twenty-eight with the approval of the vice-chancellor to open private halls within one and a half miles of Carfax as “licensed masters”.
[4] In the period 1855 to 1918 thirteen such halls were established,[5] but never recruited large numbers of students.
[6] In 1871, the Universities Tests Act allowed Catholics and dissenters to take degrees at the university (apart from theology); however a papal decree forbidding Catholics studying at Oxford or Cambridge was not withdrawn until 1895.
In 1918 a university statute was issued to allow the opening of permanent private halls situated less than 2 1/2 miles from Carfax and not run for profit.