Author: Matthews, John
Biography:
MATTHEWS, John (1755-1826: ODNB)
The son of Jane (Hoskyns) and William Matthews, he was baptised on 30 Oct. 1755 at Linton, Herefordshire. He was educated at Eton and at Pembroke College, Oxford (matric. 1772, BA 1778, MA 1779, MB 1781, MD 1782). He was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1783. On 9 Nov. 1778, he married Elizabeth Ellis at Marcle, Herefordshire; they went on to have eight sons and six daughters. After a distinguished but short career as physician to St. George’s Hospital, London (1781-3), he retired from medicine and returned to live in Hereford as a country gentleman. He built a grand house, Belmont, designed by James Wyatt with a park by Humphry Repton, at Clehonger, near Hereford, and busied himself with county affairs. (The house still stands; the park is a golf course.) He was Mayor of Hereford in 1793; senior alderman and magistrate; a Colonel in the Hereford militia; and MP for the county 1803-6. He died on 15 Jan. 1826 after “a protracted malady of intense suffering borne with Christian fortitude” and was buried at All Saints, Clehonger, with a monument in the church. (ODNB 20 Apr. 2023; findmypast.com 20 Apr. 2023; Eton College Register, 1753-1790 [1921], 360; Hereford Journal 18 Jan. 2023; “Belmont House,” parksandgardens.org) HJ