While northern professions in 1600 did not require lengthy training in mathematics or science, there was popular interest in these topics. England’s first chair in mathematics was endowed by Thomas Gresham,61 who had founded London’s Royal Exchange and pledged the rents from that institution to fund seven professorships, who would not train student but would rather give two public lectures (in Latin and English) each week. As Gresham also gave chairs in astronomy and “physik,” this produced a cluster of scientifically minded individuals, who would later play an outsized role in the founding of the Royal Society. Robert Hooke was the Gresham Professor of Geometry, William Petty the Gresham Professor of Music, and Christopher Wren the Gresham Professor of Astronomy.

Perhaps because of Gresham’s public lectures, interest in mathematics grew. More professorships followed, including the mid-17th century Lucasian Chair in Mathematics (after William Lucas, member of parliament for Cambridge), for which Isaac Newton would be the second occupant (Clark, 1904). The popular interest in science also meant that teachers at urban universities could fill public lecture halls by teaching about chemistry, and even performing public chemistry experiments.

That is from a new NBER working paper by David M. Cutler and Edward L. Glaeser, “How Have Universities Survived for Nearly a Millennium?”  Has any single individual funded three equally prestigious chairs or anything close to that?