His purpose was to convert the people of India[n 1] to Christianity "by disseminating a knowledge of the Sacred scriptures among them".[2] The university statutes governing the chair provided that the professor should be chosen by the members of Convocation – all those who had obtained the Oxford degree of Master of Arts, whether or not they taught in the university – rather than by the professors and college fellows.[3] At the time of the 1860 election, there were 3,786 members of Convocation.[4] According to the religious historian Gwilym Beckerlegge, the professorship was regarded at the time as "prestigious and handsomely remunerated".[1] An editorial in the British national newspaper The Times in 1860 said that the professorship was "one of the most important, most influential, and most widely known institutions at Oxford, not to say in the whole civilised world."[5] It paid between £900 and £1,000 per year for life.[6]