Transcript

of

Rev. D'Oyley William Oldham. [Obituary]

Trans. Devon. Assoc., vol.  XLII, (1910), pp.50-51.

by

Maxwell Adams (Ed.).

Prepared by Michael Steer

The obituary was read at the Association’s July 1910 Cullompton meeting. The Rev Oldham, born in Hatherleigh, was scion of an ancient Devon family and for 32 years was Rector of Exbourne’s Church of St Mary. He was extensively engaged in restoring the Church fabric to its former glory, completing this project in 1884. The obituary, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

Mr. Oldham was the younger son of Joseph Oldham, J.P., of Strawbridge, in Hatherleigh, by Frances Elizabeth, only daughter of the Rev. Philip T. Nind, and was bom on 10 February, 1846. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he took the B.A. degree in 1868, and proceeded to M.A. in 1876. At Oxford he was distinguished for his remarkable musical abilities, and also became known as an authority on ecclesiastical architecture and archaeology. He entered Holy Orders, and was ordained priest at Exeter in 1870. His first curacy was at Modbury, 1870-2, whence he went to St. Sidwell's, Exeter, where he remained till 1876. In the winter of 1876-7 he was appointed assistant chaplain of St. Paul's, at Cannes, in France, and in the latter year he became Rector of Exbourne, where he served for thirty-two years, greatly beloved by his parishioners, and where his architectural and archaeological knowledge gave him congenial employment in the restoration of St. Mary's, the parish church of Exbourne. He discovered the ancient screen of this church stowed away in a barn, and restored it to its original position, and devoted particular care to the old records found in the old parish chest, which he arranged and had well bound. These form a very valuable collection, among them being forms of special services used in the church from 1625 to 1705 on various occasions; such as, "A Prayer to be used on Thursday, December 3rd, 1702, to be said after the General Thanksgiving for the late happy recovery of Thy servant, his Royal Highness," and " a Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the late glorious success in forcing the enemie's lines in the Spanish Netherlands by the Arms of Her Majesty and the Allies under the Command of the Duke of Marlborough," dated 1706. All but the title-pages of this very interesting collection are printed in Old English type.
By the death of his brother, Mr. Ernest Joseph Oldham, B.A., J.P., in 1901, he succeeded to the extensive Strawbridge estates in the parishes of Hatherleigh, Monkokehampton, Petersmarland, and elsewhere, which had come to the Oldhams through the Arscotts and Molesworths from the possessions of the Abbey of Tavistock, and became Lord of the Manors of Hatherleigh and of Twigbear, and head of the family of Oldham, which in early times gave, in one of its branches, an eminent Bishop to the See of Exeter.
He joined the Association in 1901, and contributed the following papers to the Transactions, viz. Church Dedications in Devonshire, in 1903; Private Chapels of Devon: Ancient and Modern, in 1906; and The Story of a Woodland Well in 1908.
In April, 1896, Mr. Oldham married Dora Louisa, the youngest daughter of Arthur Louis Laing. He died in December, 1909, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and was buried at Exbourne amid many tokens of the esteem in which he was held.