Hugh Oldham was born in 1452 to Roger and Margery Oldham. Early sources are unclear as to whether he was born in Oldham or in Manchester, but either way his family’s roots were strongly Lancastrian. Manchester at this time was a small but thriving town, with the River Irk providing an area to develop corn mills. His father appears to have been a relatively wealthy landowner, with extensive property in the Ancoats area of Manchester. On Roger Oldham’s death in 1472, Oldham inherited his share of the estate. Part of this land was later used by Oldham for his free grammar school.
Information about Oldham’s early years and education are scant. He had five brothers and two sisters and his uncle, Richard Oldham, was abbot at St. Werbergs in Chester. It seems that his connection with Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VI, was established early on, and it is clear that his later advancement in up the ecclesiastical ladder was in part due to her patronage. With her help he was able to study law at Oxford and Cambridge and his career in the church began in the 1490s with a series of posts; canon of St. Stephens, Westminster, canon at Lincoln, dean at Wimborne and archdeacon at Exeter. In 1504 he reached the zenith of his career when he succeeded to the bishopric of Exeter.
His interest in education is apparent from his time at Exeter. University graduates were promoted to roles of responsibility and he instigated examinations to select candidates for ordination. Perhaps the state of wider education in the city was poor, as he issued an ordinance stating that no person other than a lawfully appointed Master of the Cathedral High School could conduct a school in the city or with a 7 mile radius of Exeter.
Oldham appears to have been unfraid of controversy. The cathedral at the time of his appointment employed choristers who were provided with dilapidated almshouses in which to live in exchange for conducting an ill-defined number of services. He resolved to rectify the situation and he devised a well considered programmed of services at the Cathedral and provided a new building for living quarters out of his own pocket. He wished to provide an endowment to provide for the choristers’ living in perpetuity and to this end he attempted to obtain funds from 2 chapelries whose maintenance he thought was defunct. Unsurprisingly, the curate in charge refused to vacate, so Oldham promptly excommunicated him! A court of chancery case followed but Oldham prevailed and the curate, William Thomson, was forced to apologise, whereupon the excommunication was rescinded.
He litigated against and eventually excommunicated the abbot of Tavistock, Richard Banham, after he declared his abbey exempt from rights of episcopal visitation. This set in motion a dispute that lasted four years which eventually led to a papal bull that put the abbey under the direct jurisdiction of the Pope. This episode has led to the claim that Hugh Oldham was excommunicated by the Pope. Anyone who had been excommunicated could not be buried on holy ground, and Oldham built a chapel for his tomb that meant he was buried outside the cathedral walls. However, there does not appear to be any documentary evidence to support the claim of excommunication. These two cases do, nevertheless illustrate Oldham’s determination and will to succeed. He was a reformer and a gifted administrator.
Oldham’s foundation of the Manchester Grammar School in 1515 came at the end of his life and career in the church. He may have been thinking of his on-going legacy. We know that he still had strong family ties in Manchester and at the time there was no educational establishment in the town. His friend William Smith had endowed a grammar school at Farnworth near Bolton in 1507 and Oldham followed suit in 1515. The foundation deed still retained by the school is dated 20th August 1515, and is signed by Oldham and his nephew Hugh Bexwyke, amongst others. Hugh Oldham the Bishop is very much apparent in this early deed. At foundation the school had strong links to the collegiate church (later Manchester Cathedral) and the deed instructs the Master and Usher to attend “divine service in the choir”. An annual service of prayer for the souls of the founders is also set down in the document. Oldham’s later endowment to the school in 1518 of £218, enabled the school to complete its first buildings on the land that he had inherited from his father.
Oldham remained Bishop of Exeter until his death in 1519 and is buried in the chantry chapel of St. Saviour and St. Boniface which he built in Exeter Cathedral. His tomb is an ornate effigial monument, and the chapel is decorated with his rebus, the owl. The south west section of the Old Mancunians Association attends an annual service of commemoration in Exeter Cathedral with a wreath of flowers placed at the tomb. The custom of the OMA sending a wreath to the tomb started in 1907 and the addition of a commemorative service began in 1967 and has continued to the present day. In addition to the foundation of MGS, Oldham gave £6000 to found Corpus Christi College in Oxford. His friend Richard Foxe had initially suggested the new college should be set aside as a college for monks. Oldham apparently persuaded him otherwise, stating “monks are but a sort of buzzing flies whose state cannot long endure”. Corpus was founded as a college for laymen.
Hugh Oldham’s name has not been forgotten at Manchester Grammar School. He is the only person to have the honour of a statue created in his likeness on the school site, and it now has pride of place in the school quad. His portrait hangs in the reception hall, and his rebus, the owl, is the official symbol of the school. There is no escaping the owl – it appears on school ties, blazers, letterheads and even on the school fence. The school’s coat of arms originate from Oldham’s own as Bishop of Exeter. Heraldically, these episcopal arms are not suitable for use by a school and the error was pointed out during a visit from the Queen in 1965. To put this right, the Old Mancunian Association funded an application for a grant of Arms personal to the school. The new coat of arms is very similar to Oldham’s original, but one of his Lancashire roses is replaced by the arms of the diocese of Exeter. In addition, the episcopal mitre which was originally on the school crest was replaced with a helmet and an owl with the letters “D.O.M.” across its breast. Oldham’s original rebus was an owl with the lowercase letters “dom” in its beak – indeed, one such example appears in Oldham’s chapel at Exeter – and is a pun on the original pronunciation of Oldham’s name. The new usage of “D.O.M.” is perhaps a nod to Oldham’s ecclesiastical history – an abbreviation of Deo optimo Maximo.
The school has also taken Oldham’s motto as its own – Sapere Aude translated, Dare to be Wise. When examining his life, it becomes clear that Oldham was not only concerned with the furtherance of education (or perhaps,”wisdom”) but was also a bold reformer and moderniser who was not afraid of controversy. Does this combination of wisdom and boldness, knowledge and audacity seem familiar to old boys? Perhaps Oldham has given the school more than just foundations but has managed to imbue the school with something of his own character.
Rachel Kneale
Hoots from the archive 