WD2424-2425

MATTHEWS, HENRY (17? -1830)

Matthews was an employee of the East India Company, entering its service in 1801 as an Assistant Elder, later becoming an Elder in the Private Trade Warehouse and retiring in 1827.

He appears to have been a versatile inventor as well as a keen amateur artist. His descendants possess a note written by his third son, John Matthews (Major, Indian Army, Public Works Department, Military Works) and by his grandson, H.E.S. Matthews (Punjab Police Department and eldest son of John Matthews). This note not only refers to the pictures listed below and to family miniatures made by him, but to another picture 'Representation of the Ceremony of Presenting the Colors to the Military Association of "Bridgeward" by Mrs. Hibbert, in Fishmongers' Hall, 22nd Sept, 1798', then in the vestry room of St. Magnus the Martyr. It also lists inventions and patents (1806 to 1828) including tramways, a universal dictionary, the contruction of flat roads, improved packing cases for the East India Company, the strengthening of the East India Company's Blackwall warehouses, a plan for a Penitentiary House, a gas engine, fish preserves, paddle steamboats, reduction of the poor rate, redemption of the National Debt, an Indian loan, safe carriages and gigs, a kite balloon, hot air chamber, convict labour for the roads, waterproofs, improved fire-grates, water filtering, cemeteries outside the metropolis, improved acoustics in churches, the burning of smoke, and small craft for entering docks at all times of the tide. He published a book entitled ‘Observations on Sound’ (London, 1826).

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WD2424-2425

2 drawings presented by the artist. Date of presentation unrecorded.