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The school was not without its vicissitudes, and in the later Fifties was threatened with extinction. At the end of 1856 the Anglo-Chinese College, which had been opened about the same time by Dr. Legge, was obliged to close; and St. Paul's was pronounced by the then Governor, Sir J. Bowring, to be a failure. He is quoted as saying, "For the last six years £250 a year has been voted by Parliament to the Bishop's College for the education of six persons destined to the public service, and not a single individual from that College has been yet declared competent to undertake even the meanest department of an interpreter's duty, though I have no doubt of the Bishop's zeal and wish to show some practical and beneficial result from the said Parliamentary grant. To the missionaries alone I can at present look for active assistance, and their special objects do not usually fit them for the direction of popular and general education."
However, the College entered into a new lease of life in the Sixties under Dr. J. Fryer, and prospered again for some years: but a black period supervened, when, having lost its funds in the failure of the firm of Dent & Company, it had to be closed in 1867. An attempt to reopen it in 1868 failed, and the College was temporarily absorbed in the Diocesan Orphanage in 1869.
In 1876, St. Paul's was resuscitated by Bishop J.S. Burdon, who reopened it as a Church of England School for European as well as Chinese scholars, under Mr. A. J. May as headmaster, with two Chinese assistant teachers. Bishop Burdon had been appointed Warden of the College, and the lease and site vested in the Archbishop of Canterbury, by virtue of the St. Paul's College Ordinance, No.7 of 1875. This change arose because, on the resignation of Bishop Alford in 1872, the original Letters Patent appointing a See and Bishopric of Hongkong had become revoked.
In the subsequent history of this old school we find varying periods of activity; it was for a time a school only for English children, and then reverted to an Anglo-Chinese status. In 1899 the original concept was revived, when Bishop Hoare started a Theological Training College for Chinese in connexion with St. Paul's. This was eventually transferred to Canton.
In 1909 the school was again reconstituted, and has continued in its new form until to-day. Extension schemes have been carried out from time to time—in 1911, and again in 1919 (when the hostel was built)—and work is at present being carried out to enlarge the premises, on the west side, so as to extend the class-room space and provide an assembly hall.
The oldest part of the building comprising St. Paul's College goes back about eighty-five years, for the foundation stone was laid early in 1847 (shortly before that of St. John's Cathedral, March, 1847). The College, however, dates its existence from 1850, when Bishop George Smith gave it the name of "St. Paul's College"; and the earliest report on the institution still in existence is dated March 9, 1859, showing that there were three classes being taught at the time. It might be recalled that the celebration of its eightieth birthday was held in March, 1930.