University Chest

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

University Chest

The University Chest is a term used at Oxford and Cambridge to describe the universities’ money matters. At Cambridge it is commonly called “the Chest.”

Oxford
At Oxford, the Chest refers to the university’s finances and administration. There used to be an actual locked iron chest for storing funds. The current Chest was made in the 17th century and is officially called “The Painted Chest.” Today, the Chest basically serves as the university’s finance department, with central administration in Wellington Square.

Cambridge
At Cambridge, the Chest means the university’s main capital account. Like Oxford, the name comes from a medieval chest that was used to secure university property.

See also
An Oxford University Chest, a work by John Betjeman (1938).

External links (recommended reading)
A history of the University Chest (Oxford); Chest, The (Cambridge University Archives glossary); Sources of Funds: The Chest (Cambridge).