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The English Province of the Order of Preachers was founded by St Dominic at the general chapter of Bologna in 1221, and its first priory was established later that year in Oxford. In pre-reformation times it gave birth to the Scottish and Irish provinces.
A friar is accepted into the Order by a province, and he usually remains affiliated to that province for his whole Dominican life, even if he is called upon spend time working in another province or for the Master of the Order. Thus the various provinces have developed their own range of ministries and ways of living out the Dominican charism.
The “fundamental unit” of the Order, though, is not the province but the Priory, a formally erected religious house with at least six brothers who elect their own superior, called a Prior. The brothers of a priory are together responsible for making decisions about their own life and work, in collaboration with the local bishop and with the prior provincial. Sometimes smaller houses are established, and occasionally friars are given permission to work away from a priory; nevertheless, the priory community remains the pattern for Dominican life. Any friar's work is seen not as his work alone, but as a work of the priory. The English Province currently has five priories and two houses in Great Britain.
The province also has a vicariate (a dependent territory) in the West Indies.
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