Psychology at Oxford emerged from the shadow of philosophy with the creation in 1898 of a post, the Wilde Readership in Mental Philosophy thanks to the benefactor Henry Wilde, a successful electrical engineer who also endowed scholarships and posts in philosophy, religion and astronomy.
The Wilde Readership can be considered the beginning of the official study of psychology at Oxford. The terms of the post (elevated today to the title of Wilde Professor) was “to study the human mind based on observations and reflection on experiences exclusive of methods of experiment.”
At this time, psychology was not yet an independent subject of study, and Wilde forbad the reader to undertake experimental work. As historian Jack Morrell comments:
"Wilde had firm views about his readership in mental philosophy. He intended that it be securely based in the faculty of literae humaniores and that it should promote Lockian methods among undergraduates. He insisted, therefore, that his reader should study the human mind by observation and reflection on experience, while excluding any form of experiment." Jack Morrell, Science at Oxford, 1914-1939:Transforming an Arts University (Clarendon, 1997) p.86.
Later contributions from William McDougall and William Brown would trigger changes.
