The Savilian Professorships

Abstract

WHEN Sir Henry Savile,the Elizabethan scholar, in 1619 founded the Savilian professorships of geometry and astronomy at Oxford, he was seventy years of age,and fifty-eight years had been connected with the University. He began his studies there in 1561 when a boy of twelve, at sixteen he took tifeViegree of B.A. and at twenty-one was made a fellow of Merton College, of which in 1585, after much study and travel, he became Warden. Though also from 1596 Provost of Eton, it was the University of Oxford which had the first place in his affections and none knew better than he the needs of the time. Born in the reign of Edward VI, he lived through the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth and most of that of James I. He was a boy of six when Latimer and Ridley met their deaths at the stake, and reader in Greek to Queen Elizabeth when Bruno lectured at Oxford. He heard much about religious persecutions and wars, but lived peacefully enough, devoted to his College and his books (see also p. 906).