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Haven't read the book yet (excited to!); can't resist noting how this fits in influence of Oxbridge model on UKHE. As @william_whyte has shown C19 foundations eager to distinguish selves from Oxbridge. But by 1930s UGC & other expert opinion often favoured Oxbridge as model... 1/ https://twitter.com/OSaumarezSmith/status/1343628929932939266
E.g. citing Oxbridge residency requirements in support of massively expanding halls (esp. for men students) at redbrick unis. BUT that doesn't mean uni admins, faculty, students agreed. Moments at which wider sector responded to Oxbridge were varied, sometimes quixotic. 2/
Perhaps the #1 most common preconception I have to counter in my history of HE work is to get audiences to reconsider assumption that Oxbridge has been paradigmatic in England & Wales at any point since mid-C19 (and obvs never paradigmatic in Ireland or Scotland). 3/
It *floors* me how sticky that assumption is, when Oxbridge is such a tiny percentage of the sector today - but perhaps the UEA wine cellar Otto cites, which I presume was just such a quixotic Oxbridge referent, helps to contextualise this.
One of my most strongly held polemical views is that if you are making claims about history of unis, 'student life', etc. in the UK and your evidence comes predominantly from Oxbridge, you are doing it wrong - EVEN IF you are primarily making claims eg about elite masculinity.
In the interwar period, approx 2% of the 18-25 age cohort went to university; two in three men students & five in six women students went to a non-Oxbridge university! /endrant (and sorry Otto for hijacking your tweet)
