Professor Frank Sear translated the Latin inscription in 1985 and it reads:
The University Council [give this bowl] to Horace Lamb, MA Fellow of the Royal Society of London, sometime Elder Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in the University of ÑÇÖÞ²ÊÆ±¹ÙÍø, Doctor of Divinity, in remembrance of his continuing service to the University, AD 1898.