 Victoria University had the power to award medical degrees with its own syllabus requirements.Caton worked as part-time Professor of Physiology from 1882 to 1891.When George Holt, the shipping line owner, endowed the Chair of Physiology at University College Liverpool in 1891 as a full-time appointment, Caton resigned in favour of Francis Gotch (1853–1913) who was succeeded in 1895 by Charles Scott Sherrington (1857–1952).