In 1954 the Pressed Steel Company of Oxford established the Readership in Metallurgy which was named after their managing director George Kelley. William Hume-Rothery was appointed the first Kelley Reader in Metallurgy, based in the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory; at this time Metallurgy was taught as an option of the Chemistry degree.

During the 1950s there was a rise in Governmental pressure for an increase in training of engineers; this, combined with a belief in the University that the Engineering Department was too small, led to the establishment of an advisory committee which included members from Cambridge University (which had a large and successful engineering school), the industry and Oxford University. The committee recommended the doubling of the size of the department and the proposal was put before the Board of the Faculty of Physical Sciences.

As a result of the advisory's committee's recommendations, a separate department for Metallurgy was created and in 1957 Sir Isaac Wolfson founded the Professorship in Metallurgy, to which Hume-Rothery was elected. Money for a new building was obtained from the University Grants Committee under its technology initiative; the department was initially housed in a hut in Keble Road until the Metallurgy Building was completed in 1960. In the same year the department had its first intake for the undergraduate Honour School of Metallurgy.

After Hume-Rothery's retirement in 1966 and the appointment of Peter Hirsch to the Wolfson Professorship, the Department underwent a period of change and expansion. It was renamed the Department of Metallurgy and the Science of Materials (MSOM) and in the mid 1970s a new degree course in Metallurgy, Economics and Management (later renamed Materials, Economics and Management (MEM)) was established. This degree was created in response to the report of a Committee chaired by FS (later Lord) Dainton, Enquiry into the Flow of Candidates in Science and Technology into Higher Education (Cmnd 3541, 1968), which highlighted the need to increase the provision of management studies. A degree course in Engineering and Materials Science (EMS) was introduced in the late 1980s in response to Engineering Our Future (Cmnd 7794, 1980), the report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Engineering Profession, chaired by Sir Montague Finniston. Its aim was to encourage and increase technology teaching at universities in the United Kingdom.

Following Professor Hirsch's retirement in 1992, the department underwent further changes and was renamed the Department of Materials. In 2001 the degree in Metallurgy was renamed the degree in Materials Science.

Isaac Wolfson Professors of Metallurgy:

Buildings of the Department and dates of occupation: