In 1859 he was appointed successor to Brewster in the principalship of the United College of St Andrews, a position which he held until his death at Clifton on the 31st of December 1868.
In 1885 he retired, full of years and honours, from the principalship of the college he had so long served and adorned.
C. Edwards resigned the principalship of the University College at Aberystwyth to become head of Bala (1891), now a purely theological college, the students of which were sent to the university colleges for their classical training.
Lux Mundi and the Bampton lectures led to a situation of some tension which was relieved when in 1893 Dr Gore resigned his principalship and became vicar of Radley, a small parish near Oxford.
The question of pluralities began to be agitated in 1813, and gave rise to a long struggle, in which Dr Thomas Chalmers took a notable part, and which terminated in the regulation that a university chair or principalship should not be held along with a parish which was not close to the university seat.