Researching Charles Mathews

Mathews was born in Gravesend, and learned his trade in London and Bath. In 1884 he opened his own shop in Exeter, where he published his first books in collaboration with other local booksellers.

In 1887 he returned to London, and John Lane and he went into partnership and founded The Bodley Head, which first operated as an antiquarian bookshop and later as a publisher. In 1894 they published The Yellow Book and from 1893 they published the Keynotes book series.

In 1892 he published a volume of verse from the Rhymers' Club titled The Book of the Rhymers' Club and in 1894 a follow-up volume The Second Book of the Rhymers' Club was published by him and John Lane.

In 1894 Mathews left The Bodley Head partnership. He set up on his own as Elkin Mathews Ltd. and published works by his neighbour W. B. Yeats, Lionel Johnson, John Masefield, James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Robert Bridges, among others. He also "returned to a great concentration on bookselling".

He died in 1921.

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. Lizzie Weston married, as her third husband, the actor Charles James Mathews in 1857, one day after divorcing her second husband, A. H. Davenport (1831–1873). Charles Willie assumed his stepfather's surname by deed poll.

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.

Mathews appeared in several infamous cases, including R. v. Dudley and Stephens, Oscar Wilde's suit for libel against John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry and Lord Colin Campbell's divorce proceedings. He prosecuted the Jameson Raiders, Arthur Alfred Lynch, and Louise Masset, who murdered her own son at Dalston Junction railway station. He successfully prosecuted Kitty Byron for the murder of her lover Arthur Reginald Baker in 1902. Mathews was famous for his courtroom flair and aggressive advocacy. A court reporter who often saw him in action was journalist Bernard Falk (1882-1960).

Mathews was very sociable; he was a member of the Turf, Garrick, and Beefsteak Clubs, and was a friend of King Edward VII and King George V. In the 1892 United Kingdom general election, he was the Liberal candidate for Winchester, but was not returned. The following year, he was appointed recorder of Salisbury. He was knighted in 1907, and was the first independent Director of Public Prosecutions from 1908 until his death, despite ill health. He was created a baronet in 1917.

He was buried in Putney Vale Cemetery.

Mathews was born in Paris, to American parents, Charles Drelincourt Matthews and Rebecca Thompson Matthews. He graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in 1886, and also obtained a degree in architecture from Columbia University's School of Mines in 1889. He also received a master's degree from Columbia, in 1892.

In 1891 Mathews won a competition to design the Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity in New York. In 1901 his design was used to remodel the east end of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. The Lady Chapel in St. Patrick's is his design.

During World War I, Mathews served in the United States Food Administration.

Mathews' books include The Renaissance Under the Valois (1893), and The Story of Architecture (1896).