Hugh Oldham

Hugh Oldham (c. 1452 – 25 June 1519) was an English cleric who was Bishop of Exeter (1505–19) and a notable patron of education as a founder and patron of Manchester Grammar School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Born in Lancashire to a family of minor gentry, he probably attended both Oxford and Cambridge universities, following which he was a clerk at Durham, then a rector in Cornwall before being employed by Lady Margaret Beaufort (mother of King Henry VII), rising to be the chancellor of her household by 1503. During this time he was preferred with many religious posts all over the country, being made archdeacon of Exeter in 1502 and finally bishop of that city in 1505, a decision that was probably influenced by Lady Margaret.

He was a conscientious bishop who ensured that only educated people were appointed to ecclesiastical posts. His patronage of educational establishments included the foundation of The Manchester Grammar School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford for which he donated £4,000. After his death he was buried in Exeter Cathedral in a chantry chapel that he had caused to be built for that purpose. The chapel is decorated with numerous carvings of owls, which were his personal device.

Oldham was one of the younger of six sons born to Roger Oldham and his wife Margery who were, the limited evidence suggests, yeomen or minor gentry at Ancoats, which at the time was a village in North West England, but is now an inner city area of Manchester. There are few records of his early life, but it is known that he attended university, studying canon law and either arts or civil law probably at Oxford, and he was later (in 1493) a bachelor of law at Cambridge. There is no contemporary evidence, however, that he was a member of Queens' College, Cambridge as was claimed by Thomas Fuller in his Worthies of England of 1662 and often repeated.

In 1475 he was described in a deed transferring property to him from his eldest brother James as a "clerk of Durham". At this time he was most likely either in the household of, or employed by Lawrence Booth, Bishop of Durham, whose family came from the same area as Oldham's and by whom James had also been employed. He was rector of Lanivet in Cornwall between 1488 and 1493, when he resigned the living on a pension of £12. At this time he was also a servant to William Smyth, who was keeper of the hanaper in the Court of Chancery. In 1492 he was the receiver for Lady Margaret Beaufort's estates in the West Country, and by 1503 he had risen to be the chancellor of her household.

In the years following 1490, Oldham was made a canon of the cathedrals of Exeter, Lichfield, Lincoln, St Paul's, Salisbury and York. In 1496 William Smyth, who was by then Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, appointed him to the non-residential post of master of the hospital of St John in Lichfield, to which Smyth had recently added a free grammar school and almshouse. The year 1499 saw him established as dean of Wimborne in Dorset, and in 1502 he was made archdeacon of Exeter. In 1503, he had sufficient prestige to be present at the placing of the foundation stone of the Henry VII Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey.

Possibly with some influence from Lady Margaret Beaufort (who was the mother of the then reigning king, Henry VII), Oldham was appointed as Bishop of Exeter on 24 November 1504, and was consecrated in the post on 12 January 1505. He evidently took his duties as bishop seriously and ensured that only educated people, such as university graduates, were raised to most of the important roles under his control. He also instigated examinations to select the best candidates for ordination.

Bishop Oldham's coat of arms, shown here, are described as "Sable, a chevron or, between three Owls proper; on a chief of the second, three Roses gules." Oldham adopted the owl as his personal device. It was a play on words or rebus based on his surname, which would probably have been pronounced at the time as owl-dom.