File SE3 - Letters of William Selwyn

Professor of Divinity. William Selwyn was born in Witham, Essex in 1806. After schooling at Eton he was admitted to St John's College in 1824. Selwyn graduated in 1828 and was made a Fellow of the College in 1829. He was ordained in 1831 and was presented to the rectory of Branstone. He exchanged this for the vicarage at Melbourne, Cambridgeshire in 1846. In 1855 Selwyn was elected Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity. He put aside part of his income from this post to help improve the study of theology at Cambridge, and he saw the building of the new Divinity School as a result of his beneficence. He was also the moving force behind the rebuilding of the chapel at St John's. Selwyn was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1866 and died in 1875.