Charles Willie Mathews
Sir Charles Willie Mathews, 1st Baronet,
He was born Charles Willie West in New York City, the son of actress Elizabeth Jackson (stage name Lizzie Weston; d.1899) and her first husband William West.[1] Lizzie Weston married, as her third husband, the actor Charles James Mathews in 1857, one day after divorcing her second husband, A. H. Davenport[2] (1831–1873).[3] Charles Willie assumed his stepfather's surname by deed poll.[1]
He was educated at Eton College, and after spending three years in Europe he joined the chambers of Montagu Williams as a pupil aged about twenty-one. In 1886, Williams retired as junior counsel to HM Treasury. The post was split into two and Mathews was appointed to one of the vacant offices. Two years later he was promoted to Senior Treasury Counsel, and in the same year he married Lucy Sloper but they had no children.[1]
Mathews appeared in several infamous cases, including
The
Crown Prosecutor. Then, the atmosphere was as tense and emotional as that of a playhouse in which some moving drama was being staged. Indeed, the crowd were tempted to treat the court as a theatre, and among the many notabilities of the day present famous actors predominated.[4]
Mathews was very sociable; he was a member of the
He was buried in Putney Vale Cemetery.
References
- ^ a b c d e Lentin, A. (2004). "Mathews , Sir Charles Willie, baronet (1850–1920)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. Accessed 15 July 2008. (Subscription required)
- ISBN 0-405-08568-0.
- ISBN 0-8337-3826-7.
- ^ Falk, Bernard (1951) Bouquets for Fleet Street, London, Hutchinson & Co, p.56