Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History
The Winn Professorship of Ecclesiastical History is a funded chair at Harvard Divinity School. It was created in 1877 from a bequest by Jonathan Bowers Winn (1811–1873), a businessman from Woburn, Massachusetts.
Winn had left $100,000 in a trust for his son, who died without children, so the money was to be used for a Unitarian cause. Edward Everett Hale and Andrew P. Peabody asked the Supreme Judicial Court for permission to use part of the funds to establish a professorship. The court granted the request in 1877, saying the Harvard Divinity School was closely tied to Unitarians and that Ecclesiastical History was important for Unitarian ministers. It ordered $43,500 to Harvard College to set up the Winn Professorship of Ecclesiastical History.
The professor would teach Ecclesiastical History to Divinity School students and other theology students, and could offer lectures on broader topics in religious history to all members of the University. Harvard President Charles William Eliot began looking for candidates. William Robertson Smith and Adolf von Harnack declined the offer, and Ephraim Emerton was ultimately appointed the first Winn Professor in 1882.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 04:59 (CET).