On a curious whim, an English surveyor employed by the British Administration in India decided to attend an evangelical meeting conducted by an American Preacher in the city of Poona.   That meeting would be a significant milestone in the spiritual development of that young Briton, for after that meeting he was convinced in the need to seek Christian salvation.   It was the testimony of a young lady at the meeting, one Marie Augusta Mulligan, that had moved him. Marie would later become his wife. This step towards salvation would also place the young Englishman on the path that would be a profound influence in the lives of many boys in the then fledgling entreport city of Singapore.     That man was William Fitzjames Oldham, founder of the Anglo-Chinese School and Oldham Hall.

On 17 December 1854, William Fitzjames Oldham was born to James and Mary Elizabeth Oldham in the South Indian city of Bangalore.   James Oldham was then serving as a British Army Officer in the Indian Regiment. Young William spent his early years of education at the Madras Christian College, an institution famed for its fine Christian teaching.

Some time after his conversion, the American missionaries realised the potential that was inherent in Oldham. To develop his talents further, they gave him further spiritual instruction and sent him for further training in the United States of America.   His wife, Marie joined him later.   Oldham graduated from Alleghary College in Meadville, Pennsylvania before being admitted to Boston University to read Divinity.

In 1884, he returned to India, expecting to assume the position of Principal of the Boys' High School in Bangalore.   However, Bishop John F. Hurst had earlier been told of the wonderful potential for evangelism in Singapore.   At the annual conference in Hyderabad, the decision was taken to extend Methodist work to the port-city, and Reverend Oldham was chosen for this task.   Thus, Rev Oldham, together with Dr. and Mrs. James Mills Thoburn, along with a lady organist, Miss Julia Battie, departed Calcutta and sailed for Singapore, arriving on 7th February 1885.   Rev Oldham's wife, Marie joined him later.

In Singapore, a series of evangelical meetings were held in the Town Hall.    At these daily evening meetings (there were two services on Sunday), Dr. Thoburn preached whilst Rev Oldham ushered.   As a result of these meetings, seventeen persons publicly responded to Dr. Thoburns's call to dedicate themselves to Christian ideas.    The end of these meetings also saw the foundation of the Wesley Methodist Church, with three full members and fifteen probationers.   Rev Oldham was duly elected pastor and the first Methodist chapel in Malaya was built 1885 in Coleman Street.    Thus Methodism was able to take root in Singapore, and eventually spread into the region.

Whilst strolling down a street one day, Rev Oldham chanced upon a sign which read "The Celestial Reasoning Society".    He entered the building where the society met and discovered that it was a debating society for young Chinese who wished to improve their English.   When he discovered that he was barred from membership on the grounds that he was European, Rev Oldham offered instead to conduct a lecture for the society.    His lecture on "Astronomy" so impressed his elderly Chinese audience that they asked him to tutor them in the English language.   Rev Oldham declined but said he was more than glad to start a school for their sons.

Thus it came to be that on 1 March 1886, the Anglo-Chinese School and its affiliated boarding school had its humble beginnings in a dingy room above a shop at 70 Amoy Street with 13 pupils.    Back then Rev Oldham taught English in the mornings and Chinese was taught by a Chinese teacher in the afternoons.   Eventually, the swelling numbers due to the increasing popularity saw the school moving to Coleman Street on 15th November of the same year.   It was then known as the "OLDHAM MISSION SCHOOL".    This parent institution of all Methodist schools in Singapore and Malaya made rapid progress under Rev Oldham, with its sister institution, Methodist Girls' School, (founded 15th August 1887 and known then as "Tamil Girls' School") under the supervision of Miss Sophia Blackmore.   Rev Oldham carried his work one step further by the establishment of a boarding school for boys.   In 1896, the boarding school was renamed "OLDHAM HALL" in honour of its founder Rev William Fitzjames Oldham.

In 1889, Rev Oldham returned to the United States of America, after having laid the foundations for Methodist mission work in the region.   His health was failing but he left Singapore with the comforting knowledge that his work had seen the establishment of a flourishing church, the Anglo-Chinese School and the boarding school.   It was at this time that he was elevated to the post of Professor of Oriental Religions.   In 1904, he was consecrated Bishop of North India and Malaya, an appointment he held until 1912.    At a General Conference Meeting held in that year, he was appointed General Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions, and four years later, he became the first Methodist Bishop of South America, the largest area ever traversed by a Bishop.    To this new field, he carried with the experience of his pioneer work in India and Malaya.   He held this post for 16 years.

In 1926, Bishop and Mrs. Oldham visited Malaya at the invitation of Bishop and Mrs. Titus Lowe to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Oldham Mission Schools (OHMS).   They returned again in the early part of 1935 to participate in the Jubilee Celebrations of the missions at the invitation of Bishop and Mrs Edwin F. Lee.   In this his final visit to the country he loved so dearly, it must have been a tremendous joy for the Oldham's to see the fruits of their labours which had begun half a century earlier.

Sadly, on 27 March 1937, whilst at home with his wife, Marie, in the USA, the final call came for Bishop William Fitzjames Oldham.   The time had come for him to meet his Master whom he had served so whole-heartedly and so unresolvedly for so long.   He had spent the vast majority of his life serving the Christian cause, and in the course of his work, he had laid both the spiritual and intellectual foundations for many generations and Asian Methodists to come.   Perhaps Bishop WF Oldham is best remembered, in the words of an old student of his - the friend, father and teacher of the ACS family.