regius professor meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

regius professor

nounalso spelled Regius Professor

Etymology Learned borrowing from Latin rēgius professor.

A professor who holds a position created by or filled by a royal patron.

All doctors, in whatever faculty, were called likewise professores, and possessed and equal capacity to claim and occupy the chair (cathedra) on solemn inceptions and other occasions; this privilege was first restricted, by the Elizabethan statutes, to the three regii professores.1841, George Peacock, Observations on the Statutes of the University of Cambridge, London: John W. Parker. Cambridge: J. and J. J. Deighton, page 34:
In Oxford there are some forty professors, of whom seven or eight are regius professors appointed by the Crown, and paid by revenues derived from the Crown.1874, Report: Ordered by the House of Assembly to be Printed, page 16:

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For very good reasons, the College professors were keen to exclude the new regius professors - who often received a mere £50 per year from the Crown - from a share in the College revenue, and so men like the chemist Thomas Thomson and the engineer Lewis Gordon (unlike the five older regius professors of astronomy, church history, civil law, medicine, and anatomy) were without administrative and academic power in the Glasgow institution.1989, Crosbie Smith, M. Norton Wise, Energy and Empire: A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin, →ISBN, page 27:
Sir Henry Acland, regius professor from 1857 to 1895, fought a series of good and largely successful fights to develop biological sciences at the university, overcoming the objections of anti-Darwinians, antivivisectionists, and others committed to tranquil inertia.2002, Michael Bliss, William Osler: A Life in Medicine, →ISBN, page 310:

Regius Professor

noun

Alternative Alternative form of regius professor.

As our wish and our object is not so much to blame as to praise, we regret, that we gave reason (p. 216) to expect any notice of this pamphlet, whose Author, besides railing at the present arrangements of our prelacy, tythes, &c., would, by a fixed perpetual rent-charge, do that for the clergy, which, by a similar error, was badly done for our Regii Professores, i.e. provide for the clergy an unalterable annual maintenance! which, according to the present value of money, might, possibly, compensate the Clergy; but which, as the value of money changes, must, ere long, leave them paupers indeed!1835, a Clergyman, The Textuary and Ritualist; or, Biblical and Liturgical Repertory: Intended as a Help to Students of the Bible, and a Guide to Members of the Church, volume I, London: […] J. Souter, […]; L. B. Seeley, […]; Hatchard and Son, […]; and J. Nesbit, […], page 246:
“The sum of two hundred and fifty pounds nineteen shillings and tenpence, standing in the names of the Reverend James Ameraux Jeremie, D.D., John Thomas Abdy, Esquire, LL.D., and Henry John Hayles Bond, Esquire, M.D. (three of the Regii Professores in the University of Cambridge), being the produce of two hundred and forty pounds, the purchase-money for property in Cambridge taken under the powers and provisions of the Cambridge Improvement Act, 28 George III. / “The sum of six hundred and eight pounds nine shillings and eight pence, also standing in the names of the Reverend James Ameraux Jeremie, D.D., John Thomas Abdy, Esquire, LL.D., and Henry John Hayles Bond, Esquire, M.D., the three Regii Professores in the University of Cambridge, being the produce of five hundred and sixty-two pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence, the purchase-money for property in Cambridge taken by Saint John’s College.1870, Twenty-Second Report from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England, with an Appendix. Report, and Part I. of Appendix., London: […] George E[dward] Eyre and William Spottiswoode, […] [f]or Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, page 757:

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...some of us wish to avail ourselves of the opportunity to discuss them, and, as we think most proper, to make our Regius Professor a party to the discussion; and we do so because our ultimate and chief object is to co-operate with the Head of our Faculty in the duties of his chair as he has officially defined them.1905, A Letter to the Regius Professor of Modern History on the Teaching of History at Oxford:
New Troy. London was supposed to have been founded by Aeneas, descendant of Brutus, after his defeat by the Greeks. Accordingly it was also called Troynovant, as Brathwait humorously referred to it in Mercurius Britanicus: "In Troynovant . . . thou shalt see Coblers and Hucksters, that arise out of old Shoes and Panniers, beating the Pulpit and broaching new doctrines, as if they were Regii Professores, and held by the Rabble to be most profound Divinity. . . ." Quoted in Black, Richard Brathwait, An Account of His Life and Works (Philadelphia, 1928), p.76.1928, Matthew Wilson Black, Richard Brathwait: An Account of His Life and Works, Philadelphia, Pa., page 76; quoted in Allen H. Lanner, editor, A Critical Edition of Richard Brathwait’s Whimzies, New York, N.Y.; London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1991, page 340:
The forty-first chapter of a draft of new statutes for the college, drawn up in the reign of Queen Mary, is exclusively concerned with the three Regius Professors; and though these draft statutes were never formally approved by the Crown, and therefore never became operative, the code which Queen Elizabeth gave to the college was almost identical with them, except for such modifications as the religious changes required.1955, D.A. Winstanley, Early Victorian Cambridge, page 289:
And this Statute, so far as the letter is concerned at any rate, does not give the powers, now claimed, to the Regius Professor — for one plain reason — that it does not once mention his name throughout.2006, John Henry Newman, Francis J. McGrath, Charles Stephen Dessain, The letters and diaries of John Henry Newman, →ISBN:

Part of the title of a regius professor.

A VACANCY having occurred in the HEAD MASTERSHIP of this Institution, Candidates for the Office are requested to send in their Names and Testimonials on or before the 1st of July next, to the Rev. the Regii Professores of Divinity, Hebrew, and Greek, in the University of Cambridge, under cover to the Rev. Professor Lee, D.D., College-green, Bristol, from whom information as to the duties and emoluments of the Office may be obtained.1846 June, The Ecclesiastical Gazette; or, Monthly Register of the Affairs of the Church of England, and of Its Religious Societies and Institutions, volume VIII, London: […] Charles Cox, […], page 287:
Acquainted, however, as you would have us believe you are, with the internal economy of the Church, you cannot be ignorant of the fact, that the Bishops have been in the habit of requiring from all candidates for holy orders certificates of having attended the Lectures of the Divinity Regii Professores of Oxford and Cambridge, whoever these might be.1847, W[illiam] B[almbro’] Flower, A Letter to The Right Hon. Lord John Russell, Her Majesty’s First Lord of the Treasury, in Reply to His Lordship’s Answer to the Remonstrant Bishops. With a Postscript on Dr. Hampden’s Letter., London: Joseph Masters, […], page 5:

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There were but three Regii Professores of Physic at Cambridge in the last century (Chr. Green, Cai. 1700: Russell Plumptre, Qu. 1741: Sir Isaac Pennington 1793—1817), which speaks well for their professional treatment of themselves, but I do not know that they ever lectured.1877, Christopher Wordsworth, Scholae Academicae: Some Account of the Studies at the English Universities in the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge: At the University Press. London: Cambridge Warehouse, […]. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, and Co., page 172:
Finally they appointed the Regius Professors of Divinity both at Oxford and at Cambridge to provide for the occasion, and it took both of these a long series of months to propound their answers to Campion’s tract, which is only as long as a magazine article.1914, Edmund Campoon, Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name of the Faith and Presented to the Illustrious Members of Our Universities, London: The Manresa Press, […]. B. Herder, […], page 25:
The Divinity School consists of the Regius Professor of Divinity, and Archbishop King's Lecturer, each of whom has his assistants.2000, Nicholas Lee, Irish identity and literary periodicals, 1832-1842 - Volume 4, page 115:
In 1895 Sanderson succeeded Acland as Regius Professor of Medicine. Other medical sciences, including anatomy and pathology, were strengthened, the curriculum and organization of Oxford medicine was reformed, and by the 1890s it was possible to get a decent training in the preclinical medical sciences at Oxford, walk the wards for a year or two in London, and, upon examination by a regius professor who still had very few other duties, get an Oxford medical degree.2002, Michael Bliss, William Osler: A Life in Medicine, →ISBN, page 310: