Hugh Oldham

Hugh Oldham
Bishop of Exeter
Effigy of Hugh Oldham (d.1519), Bishop of Exeter, Oldham Chapel, south aisle, Exeter Cathedral
See	Exeter
Installed	12 January 1505
Term ended	25 June 1519
Predecessor	John Arundel
Successor	John Vesey
Orders
Ordination	unknown
Personal details
Born	c. 1452 Lancashire, England
Died	25 June 1519 Exeter
Buried	Exeter Cathedral
Denomination	Catholic

Hugh Oldham (c.1452 – 25 June 1519) was a Bishop of Exeter and a notable patron of education. 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.

Hugh 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.