Regius Professor of Greek (Cambridge)

The Regius Professorship of Greek is one of the oldest professorships at the University of Cambridge. The Regius Professor chair was founded in 1540^[1] by Henry VIII with a stipend of £40 per year, subsequently increased in 1848 by a canonry of Ely Cathedral.

Regius Professors of Greek

• 1540: John Cheke
• 1547: Nicholas Carr
• 1549: Francisco de Enzinas, alias Dryander
• 1562: Bartholomew Dodington
• 1585: Andrew Downes
• 1625: Robert Creighton, sr.
• 1639: James Duport
• 1654: Ralph Widdrington
• 1660: Isaac Barrow
• 1663: James Valentine
• 1666: Robert Creighton, jr.
• 1672: Thomas Gale
• 1672: John North
• 1674: Benjamin Pulleyn
• 1686: Michael Payne
• 1695: Joshua Barnes
• 1712: Thomas Pilgrim
• 1726: Walter Taylor
• 1743: William Fraigneau
• 1750: Thomas Francklin
• 1759: Michael Lort
• 1771: James Lambert
• 1780: William Cooke
• 1792: Richard Porson
• 1808: James Henry Monk
• 1823: Peter Paul Dobree
• 1825: James Scholefield
• 1853: William Hepworth Thompson
• 1867: Benjamin Hall Kennedy
• 1889: Richard Claverhouse Jebb
• 1906: Henry Jackson
• 1921: Alfred Chilton Pearson
• 1928: Donald Struan Robertson
• 1950: Denys Lionel Page
• 1974: Geoffrey Stephen Kirk
• 1984: Eric Handley
• 1994: Patricia Elizabeth Easterling
• 2001: Richard Lawrence Hunter^[2]
• 2023: Tim Whitmarsh^[3]

Official coat of arms

According to a grant of 1590, the office of Regius Professor of "Greke" at Cambridge has a coat of arms with the following blazon: Per chevron argent and sable, in chief the two Greek letters Alpha and Omega of the second, and in base a cicada (grasshopper) of the first, on a chief gules a lion passant guardant Or, charged on the side with the letter G sable. The crest has an owl.^[4]

Coat of arms of Regius Professor of Greek

Crest on a wreath "silver and sables," an owl argent, legs, beak, and ears or Escutcheon Per chevron argent and sable, in chief the two Greek letters Α (Alpha) and Ω (Omega) of the second, and in base a "cicado" or grasshopper of the first, on a chief gules, a lion passant guardant or, charged on the side with the letter G sable.