The university as distinguished from the colleges has never been a wealthy society, and its sources of revenue are now much the same as they have always been. There are the capitation fees of members of the university. Fees for matriculation, for the public examinations, and for graduation, and proctors’ fines.
The income of Burwell rectory and of a farm at Barton, The trading profits of the University Press; and one new source of income—the annual contribution from each of the colleges, in proportion to its revenues, provided for by statute in 1882. The vice-chancellor delivers an annual statement of expenditure, which includes the upkeep of the Senate House and Schools, of the University church, the Registrary’s office, the observatory, museums and lecture rooms, and a yearly contribution to the library: the salaries of professors and public examiners, and the stipends and salaries of university officers and servants.[255]
College wealth and property.
The original property of colleges was in land, benefices, and plate. The portable property was laid by in a chest kept in the muniment room: here title deeds, charters, rare books, college plate, and legacies in specie were treasured; the last being drawn upon for the purpose for which they were bequeathed until exhausted. Benefactors to a college presented it with a “chest,” and hence the “University Chest” is still the name for its revenue. Queen Eleanor presented a “chest” of a hundred marks to the university in 1293 (“The Queen’s Chest”); and Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk, enriched the public treasury with a thousand marks in the reign of Henry VII. when the “chests” had been “embezzled to private men’s profit”; a gift “which put the university in stock again.”[256] The “Ely Chest” was given in 1320 by John sometime Prior of Ely and Bishop of Norwich, and the other principal givers were country parsons, university chancellors, a “citizen of London” in 1344, and Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter (“Exeter’s Chest”) in 1401.
The wealth of the colleges differs greatly. Trinity college has a gross income of over £74,000 and the next richest college is S. John’s. The poorer colleges have gross incomes varying from 4 to £9000.[257] The proportion contributed at Cambridge and Oxford for the royal loan of 1522 is interesting. At Oxford, New College and Magdalen contributed most, more than eight times as much as Exeter and Queens’ (£40) which gave least.[258] At Cambridge, King’s College and King’s Hall were the richest corporations and contributed the same sums as New College and Magdalen Oxford.