Portal:University of Oxford/Selected college/20

Nuffield College, to the west of the city centre, was founded in 1937 by the car manufacturer and philanthropist Lord Nuffield. He gave the site to the university and £900,000 (approximately £246M in modern terms) to build and endow the college. His intention had been to establish a college for engineering and business methods, but he was persuaded to let the money be used for a social sciences college instead – a decision that he sometimes later regretted, although he was sufficiently pleased with the college to leave it the bulk of his estate in his will. Construction began in 1949 and was finished in 1960, to a design by Austen Harrison. The main tower, about 150 ft tall, holds the library and is a noted Oxford landmark. Nuffield is an all-graduate college (and was Oxford's first college for postgraduates only), primarily for research in economics, politics and sociology; there are about 75 students and 60 Fellows (many holding university posts), headed by the economist Andrew Dilnot as Warden. Former students include Kofi Abrefa Busia (former Prime Minister of Ghana), the British politician Patricia Hewitt, and the economist Robert Skidelsky.