Portal:University of Oxford/On this day/August 12

Births

• 1774 – Robert Southey (Balliol), poet
• 1819 – Hibbert Binney (Worcester), Bishop of Nova Scotia 1851–87
• 1832 – Hely Hutchinson Almond (Balliol), Scottish educator and rugby enthusiast
• 1839 – Sir George Macpherson-Grant, 3rd Baronet (Christ Church), landowner and politician
• 1878 – Clifford Woodward (Jesus), Bishop of Bristol 1933–46 and Bishop of Gloucester 1946–53
• 1887 – Erwin Schrödinger (Magdalen), physicist
• 1911 – Sir Duncan Wilson (Balliol), diplomat and Master of Corpus Christi, Cambridge 1971–80
• 1915 – Edward Patey (Hertford), Dean of Liverpool 1964–82
• 1923 – Gordon Samuels (Balliol), Governor of New South Wales 1996–2001
• 1925 – Norris McWhirter and Ross McWhirter (Trinity), founders of the Freedom Association and writers of the Guinness Book of Records
• 1939 – Oliver Ford Davies (Merton), actor
• 1940 – Michael Brunson (Queen's), journalist
• 1944 – Neil Balfour (University), merchant banker and Conservative politician

Deaths

• 1560 – Thomas Phaer, doctor and writer
• 1740 – John Dawnay (Christ Church), politician
• 1857 – William Conybeare (Christ Church), clergyman, geologist and palaeontologist
• 1933 – Walter Lock (Corpus Christi, Magdalen and Keble), Warden of Keble 1897–1920, Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture 1895–1919, and Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity 1919–27
• 1976 – Tom Driberg (Christ Church), Labour politician
• 1999 – Sir John Rigby Hale (Jesus), historian of the Renaissance
• 2004 – Basil Wigoder (Oriel), Liberal politician
• 2005 – Lakshman Kadirgamar (Balliol), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka 1994–2001 and 2004–05