HRH Queen Elizabeth II laying Wolfson College Oxford's Foundation Stone in 1968

On the 2nd of May 1968, the very day that the French authorities shut down the University of Paris at Nanterre and so triggered the student protests, here on the radical left bank of the Cherwell, that most unlikely agent provocateur, Her Majesty the Queen, laid the foundation stone of these new college buildings, and so sparked off what was, and still remains, a profound challenge to the traditional Oxford collegiate model.
The dreams of the early visionaries - who saw a new institution arising from the crumbling masonry of the mediaeval University, divested of its obsolete hierarchies, and full of international students discussing their research on equal terms with scholars drawn from the full range of specialist disciplines, not just the select few found in most undergraduate colleges -these dreams were brought into reality by the generosity of the Wolfson family and the Ford Foundation, two bodies whose association with revolutionary movements is, it should be noted, otherwise rarely documented!
So later in 1968 the College was able to admit its very first graduate students, and at the end of the year held its first General Meeting, uniting graduates and fellows in one decision-making body, working for the benefit of the whole community.
The above was quoted from: Forty Years On: the Cherwell and the Seine in May 1968. By the then Vicegerent, Prof David Taylor, who toasted Wolfson College and the Wolfson family at the second Wolfson Dinner, 7 May 2008. Printed in the College Record 2007-08.