MARGARET Thatcher had a bittersweet affair with Oxford.

As a young Margaret Roberts she left Somerville College, Oxford in 1947, clutching a second class degree in chemistry.

But when she went on to become education minister her relationship with the university turned from fond to frosty.

In 1985, the dons' voted to refuse her an honorary degree in protest against her cuts in funding for education.

Over 1000 academics and administrators packed into the ticket-only meeting to discuss whether she should get a degree.

The vote against was much higher than expected - 738 to 319 - and was greeted with cheers by students who handed in a 5,000 signature petition.

The decision meant Mrs Thatcher became the first Oxford-educated prime minister since the war to be denied the honour.

It sparked fierce controversy in the national newspapers and also the letters pages of the Oxford Mail and Times.

The warden of All Souls, Sir Patrick Neill, was one of Mrs Thatcher's leading supporters.

He was disappointed at the decision and was quoted at the time as saying: "We have never given honorary degrees in the past because we approved or disapproved of someone's policies."

The principal of Mrs Thatcher's old college, Somerville, also supported her nomination.

Daphne Park said: "You don't stop someone becoming a fellow of an academic body because you dislike them."

But Professor Peter Pulzer, of All Souls, who led the opposition, said: "I think we have sent a message to show our very great concern, our very great worry about the way in which educational policy and educational funding are going in this country.

"I hope the prime minister and the government and the country at large will take note." Mrs Thatcher did not comment on the decision.

A Downing Street spokesman said: "If they do not wish to confer the honour, the prime minister is the last person to wish to receive it."

But revenge is said to be a dish best served cold and the Iron Lady seemed to make her feelings clear in 1998 when her charitable foundation endowed a £2m chair in "enterprise studies" not to Oxford, but to Cambridge University.

That same year, Mrs Thatcher also donated the coveted complete record of her government papers to Churchill College, Cambridge.