【Introduction】
George Leslie Mackay, a Canadian Presbyterian missionary, arrived in Taiwan in 1872, the 11th year of Emperor Tongzhi. In 1880, the 6th year of Emperor Guangxu, Mr. Mackay returned to Canada to make his first report of his work. Deeply sympathetic to the situation of his students’ learning environment, in which they studied under the big banyan tree sitting on the grass under the big blue sky, during Machay’s furlough in Canada, he returned to Oxford County and raised funds to start a school in Taiwan. With help from a local newspaper, the townsmen of Oxford donated US$6215, and with these donations, Mackay was able to build a modernized school in Taiwan. Upon his return the following year, he purchased a piece of land in Tamsui, designed the main building and personally supervised its construction. The building was completed in 1882, and because it was funded in large part by contributions from the residents of Oxford County in Ontario, Canada, he named the school Oxford College. In 1914, the 3rd year of Emperor Taisho, the school was relocated to the Shuanglian area of Taipei and was renamed the "Taipei Theological School" (nowadays known as the Taiwan theological college and seminary). The original location for Oxford College was used by the Tamsui Middle School, which became the first westernized school in northern Taiwan.
The building compound consists of two main halls and two angled wings. The roof of the main hall is decorated with a pinnacle of the chapel and three dormers. The lintel over the front door, made of fine-quality stone from the Guanying Mountain, was inscribed with the name of the school in both Chinese and English. Other special characteristics include an arched door with two arched windows under the front gabled wing houses.