Career
For several years Mathews took bit parts, but on 15 May 1803 he made his first London appearance at the Haymarket, as Jabel in Cumberland's The Jew and as Lingo in The Agreeable Surprise. As a continued public success, he was taken on at the Drury Lane. His gift for mimicry enabled him to disguise his personality without a change of costume. His versatility and originality were displayed in his one man show, or "monodramatic entertainment," entitled At Home or Matthews at Home, which he initiated in the Lyceum Theatre in 1808. Leigh Hunt wrote that his table entertainments "for the richness and variety of his humour, were as good as half a dozen plays distilled." The show combined mimicry, storytelling, recitations, improvisation, quick-change artistry, and comic song.
In 1822-1823 Mathews toured the United States (US) to great success. During his stay, he developed a number of impressions of American types. One of these was the African American, said to have been based on the American black actor James Hewlett, who performed Shakespeare roles at the African Grove. In his next show, A Trip to America, Mathews sang a version of the popular slave freedom song, "Possum Up a Gum Tree", performing in dialect and possibly in blackface. One author called him "the paterfamilias of the Yankee theatre and the progenitor of all native American dialect comedy." Mathews won 3,000 crowns' damages after bringing an action for libel against the Philadelphia Gazette.
Returning to England in autumn 1823, he joined Frederick Henry Yates, manager of the Adelphi Theatre. During his successful career, Mathews, together with John Kemble and John Braham, was received as a guest by George IV. A few years after his return from the US, Mathews bought a half-share in the Adelphi Theatre. His connection with the Adelphi was a critical and popular success for Mathews, but not a financial success. In 1834, he made a second tour performing in the United States. He cut his trip short and returned ill from the tour, after his last appearance in New York City on 11 February 1835.
Failing to recover his health, Mathews died poor in Plymouth in June 1835, without appearing again on a British stage.
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