The first Regius professorship was in the field of medicine, and founded in 1497 by King James IV of Scotland at University of Aberdeen.

This royal imprimatur, and the relative rarity of these professorships, means a Regius Chair is prestigious and highly sought-after.

The new chair was endowed by Sir David Baxter, of Dundee, and supplemented by annual funds from the UK parliament.

Henry Charles Fleeming Jenkin was appointed from the Chair of Engineering at University College, London, to be its first incumbent.

Fleeming (pronounced as "Fleming", so we are informed by his one-time student Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote an affectionate memoir of him) Jenkin brought to the Regius Chair a notable combination of scientific knowledge, practical experience and business acumen.

In 1946 Ronald Arnold, a Glasgow-born specialist in structural analysis and gyrodynamics, was appointed from Swansea University as the fourth Regius Professor of Engineering.

Grant had previously led the signal processing research at Edinburgh, with achievements in the design of adaptive filters and mobile communication receivers.