Bishop Burden turned the building into a school mainly for English-speaking boys, which operated from 1873 to 1878. During this time, St. Paul's College and St. Joseph's College competed in the earliest inter-school football matches ever played in the colony. The college again became an Anglo-Chinese school, under the headmastership of A. T. Fryer in 1878. The college was suspended in 1899, and the building was used as a training school for Chinese Catechists under the leadership of Rev. P. A. Bunbury.