Academic pay is infamously low today, relative to ability and attainment, and to private sector pay as well – and the situation was not significantly better in the 19th century. Between 1857 and 1914, an Oxford fellow could expect to receive an annual stipend of £200, those appointed as tutors an extra £100-£600; masters and wardens got £1,500. Professors would be somewhere on this continuum; the worst paid, in the first half of the century, received £200 and the best paid up to £1200 by c.1900. It is important to note that these sums were in addition to the money they received from their fellowships; professorial positions were university appointments and were paid from central university funds. A Royal commission reporting in 1852 recommended a minimum professorial stipend of £800, but noted that many received less than that. By way of comparison, the Asquith government of the early C20th considered £1,200 a year to be a benchmark figure for an ordinary professional salary.

Cash alone does not tell the full story; Oxford colleges provided plenty of 'extras' in the form of free or heavily subsidised food, drink and lodging, plus access to facilities, research assistance, and libraries, of course. Nonetheless, professors in any field could hardly be considered lavishly paid in this period.

Some explanation and qualification may help. Before 1857 Oxford pay was based on a dividend, calculated from the annual surplus of the fellow's college; the £200 salary paid thereafter (which was not increased in line with inflation till after 1914) was based on what was typical beforehand. And one reason why the figure was low was that dons were not expected to have family commitments or responsibilities; until the 1870s all fellows were expected to be unmarried; earlier in the century a significant proportion were bound to be in holy orders (and hence would normally receive a – highly variable – additional stipend from the church, from whatever parish they were nominally assigned to: hence the Church of England term for the appointment to be vicar: "the living of [Parish "X"].") If they were active in university life, they would have to deduct the cost of employing a curate from that.

All this also implies a regularity that was not present in practice. Total stipends were typically made up from numerous sources. Rolleston gives an example of the pay due to the Cambridge Regius Professor of Medicine in 1872:

Government stipend (Regius professors were appointed by the Crown): £34 18s 0d

Rental income from a benefactor's property: £130

Compensation for forfeited professional fees: £50

University Chest: £35

For each student appointed M.D.: 10 guineas

For each student entering for the first M.B. examination: 3 guineas

... taking the total stipend to over £250 per year, exclusive of the money due from his fellowship.

Sources

LWB Brockliss, The University of Oxford: A History

Humphrey Rolleston, The Cambridge Medical School: A Biographical History