High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The position of Savilian Professor of Astronomy was established at the University of Oxford in 1619. It was founded (at the same time as the Savilian Professorship of Geometry) by Sir Henry Savile, a mathematician and classical scholar who was Warden of Merton College, Oxford and Provost of Eton College. He appointed John Bainbridge as the first professor, and Bainbridge took up his duties in 1620 or 1621.