School of Forestry:

The School of Forestry opened in Oxford in 1905 in temporary accommodation at 6 Keble Road. Its foundation was directly due to the closure of the Royal Indian Engineering College at Cooper's Hill, near Windsor, which taught probationers for the Indian Forest Service. Following discussion as to how India's requirements for trained forest officers could be met in the future, it was decided that training should be given at a number of British universities, and centralised at one of them. Oxford was chosen as the centre, an important factor in its selection being the offer by St John's College of facilities in Bagley Wood for practical work. The College also provided a building for the School, in 1908, next to the School of Rural Economy which it also leased to the University.

To oversee the School, the University established a Delegacy for Superintending the Instruction of Candidates for the Indian Forest Service, and for Granting Diplomas in Forestry (renamed the Delegacy for Forestry in 1912). The Professor of Forestry at the Royal Engineering College, Sir William Schlich, who remained an employee of the Civil Service, was transferred with the School and the India Office gave a grant to the School for his salary and that of his assistant. For the first four years, the School taught probationers for the Indian Forest Service but subsequently expanded its recruitment to include men who had passed through the university forestry schools at Edinburgh and Cambridge.

Schlich retired from the Civil Service in 1911, compelling the University to take the temporary measure of appointing him Reader in Forestry with the personal status of professor, conferred by special decree. Despite his efforts to secure endowment of a chair in Forestry, the University only established a permanent professorship after Schlich's retirement in 1919. The Professorship of Forestry, attached to St John's College, was instituted and RS Troup (a member of the Indian Forest Service and a former pupil of Schlich) was elected as the first Professor in 1920.

The University was unwilling to accept forestry as a degree subject and so a diploma was instituted. Until the First World War, students were required to have a university degree as a prerequisite of admission. This was waived after the war when forestry also became available as a pass degree subject (the diploma remaining for those unable to fulfil the requirements for the degree). Most of the graduates still went on to work in India but there was increasing demand from the colonies. By 1933 recruitment for the Indian Forest Service had practically ceased.

The Delegacy for Forestry was replaced in 1923 by the Committee for Forestry.

Imperial Forestry Institute:

In 1920 the Empire Forestry Conference was convened in London and discussed, amongst other things, higher education and research in forestry. It highlighted the need for a centre where special facilities for postgraduate instruction and study could be provided for those parts of the Empire where such facilities were not available. This was again discussed at the second Empire Forestry Conference, held in Canada in 1923, and Oxford was selected as the most suitable place for the proposed centre. As a result, the Imperial Forestry Institute was founded in Oxford in 1924 as an organisation linked with the existing School of Forestry. It was to be directed by the Professor of Forestry and supervised by a Board of Governors comprising representatives of the University, the Forestry Commission and the Colonial Office. The School of Forestry retained its separate organisation and administration but most of the staff and accommodation were shared by the two institutions. The Institute recruited additional staff and expanded its accommodation into two new temporary buildings and two rented houses in Keble Road and Museum Road.

The new Institute was financed mainly by grants from the Colonial Office and the Forestry Commission. Over time its activities increased to the extent that a full-time Director was appointed to alleviate the administrative burden on the Professor (although the Professor remained head of the organisation). In 1934, JN Oliphant was appointed to the new post and at the same time the Board of Governors was replaced by a Committee for the Imperial Forestry Institute, appointed to manage the Institute directly. That same year a new University Committee for Forestry assumed overall responsibility for both the School of Forestry and the Imperial Forestry Institute. The existing Committee for Forestry was reconstituted as the Forestry Diploma Committee.

Department of Forestry:

The change was not wholly satisfactory and in 1938 a committee was appointed under the chairmanship of Sir Farquhar Buzzard to consider afresh the administration of the two institutions. The outcome was a new statute of 1938 which brought about the complete fusion of the School of Forestry and the Imperial Forestry Institute in 1939 as the Department of Forestry, with the Professor of Forestry in charge. The Department was administered entirely by the University but financed jointly by the University and government departments (the Colonial Office and Forestry Commission). The Committee for Forestry continued, with responsibilities such as appointing staff, providing for the instruction and supervision of Forest Service Probationers and conducting research. The Forestry Diploma Committee and the Committee for the Imperial Forestry Institute were abolished.

From 1926 to 1945 forestry was overseen by the Biological Sciences Faculty. The case for making forestry an honours degree had been put before, and approved by, Congregation in 1936 but had been rejected by a small majority in Convocation. It was brought forward again in 1944 and accepted. The Honour School of Forestry was instituted in 1945 and a new Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry established. The Committee for Forestry was succeeded by an Advisory Committee for Forestry in 1952, placing the Department on the same footing as other science departments. A new building for the Department was opened in South Parks Road in 1950. In 1963 the title 'Imperial Forestry Institute' was changed to 'Commonwealth Forestry Institute'.

In 1968, the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry was abolished and agriculture and forestry became sub-faculties of the Faculty of Biological and Agricultural Sciences. In the following year the Sub-faculty of Forestry was renamed the Sub-faculty of Forest Science and a new three-year honours degree in Agricultural and Forest Sciences was established. The Sub-faculty was again combined with Agriculture in 1975 to become the Sub-faculty of Agricultural and Forest Science.

Following the resignation of MED Poore as Professor of Forest Science in 1983, the Professorship was abolished and replaced by a new post of Director of the Forestry Institute. In 1985 the Honour School of Agriculture and Forest Sciences was abolished and the Biological and Agricultural Sciences was renamed the Faculty of Biological Sciences. In that same year, a new Department of Plant Sciences was created, combining the three former separate departments of agricultural science, botany and forestry. The Institute continued as the Oxford Forestry Institute, under the Advisory Committee for Forestry, until its research functions were absorbed by the Department of Plant Sciences in 2001. The Biological Sciences Faculty was abolished in 2000 on the creation of the Life and Environmental Sciences Division.

Professors of Forestry:

Professors of Forest Science:

Director of the Oxford Forestry Institute: