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It is not true that "the universities of Oxford and Cambridge do not have a charter or an act" ("Legal ins and outs of power", THES , April 12).

They are governed in accordance with the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Act 1923, under which commissioners were appointed to make statutes for the two universities "in general accordance with the recommendations contained in the Report of the Royal Commission" of 1922.

The act empowered the universities to make changes to the statutes, subject to this proviso and the approval of the Privy Council.

A. W. F. Edwards
Professor of biometry
Gonville and Caius College,
Cambridge