The Norway Scholarship is a scholarship to the University of Oxford that is awarded in Norway. Norway Scholars receive funding for one or two years of study and research at Oxford University, and the scholar always becomes a member of Wadham College. The first Norway Scholarship was awarded in 1920. Since then, one Norway Scholar has been selected annually, except for a few periods, such as during the Second World War. The scholarship is highly competitive, and is awarded to a current student, or recent graduate of Oslo University. Past Norway Scholars have included Nordahl Grieg, Peter A. Munch and Harald Sverdrup. History The idea for a scholarship fund enabling students from Royal Frederik University, (now University of Oslo) to study for one year at Wadham College in Oxford was conceived in 1919 by a young alumnus of the college, who during the war years 1914–18 had held the post of British vice-consul at Kristiansund in Møre og Romsdal, Norway. Arthur Ivor Garland Jayne (1882-1958) was a son of Francis Jayne (1845–1921) Lord Bishop of Chester. Arthur Jayne had married Fredrikke Marie Cathrine von Munthe af Morgenstierne, daughter of Professor Bredo Henrik von Munthe af Morgenstierne (1851–1930), Rector of the University of Oslo (1912–1918). As with famous Polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen, he gave NOK 5000.- towards the establishment of a Norwegian Oxford Scholarship Fund. Altogether Jayne succeeded in raising NOK. 60 000.- or approximately GBP 2780. Jayne spent his later life as a lecturer in English at the University of Oslo. Arthur Jayne retrospectively explained his initiative in a letter dated 14. October 1945 to Professor Didrik Arup Seip (1884–1963), then Rector of Oslo University, in the following words: At the time of the first world war – - – a considerable amount of ‘Allied’ propaganda material, sent to Norway and intended to inform Norwegian opinion about the war, proved ill-adapted to enlist the understanding sympathy of those who had previously had cultural or business contacts with the nations in conflict with the Allies. The experience seemed to indicate the great importance of any educational facilities which would bring the youth of Norway and Britain into really close association with each other. It struck me that one useful step in that direction could be some permanent arrangement which would enable Norwegian students to participate in the typically English form of university life that exists in the college system of Oxford