A comic genius from the Eighteenth Century
The school archive is always pleased to receive items relating to the history of Merchant Taylors' and a former pupil, Charles Hind (OMT 1969-1972) has donated a biography of an illustrious alumnus from an entirely different era.
Charles Mathews attended Merchant Taylors’ from 1787 – 1791. His father was a Methodist preacher and bookseller and he was able to attend the School via one of the places available to those with a low income. His opinions of the School make for interesting reading:
Bishop, the head master, wore a huge powdered wig, larger than any bishop’s wig. It invited invasion, and we shot paper darts with such singular dexterity into the protruding bush behind, that it looked like a frightful porcupine.
Mathews goes on to tell how the school consisted of six forms under the tuition of only four masters, with mixed reputations.
Two more cruel tyrants than Bishop and Rose never existed, they were great…nuisances, who...mercilessly paced up and down, inflicting pangs unutterable.
Needless to say, 18th century discipline was based around the cane, which Mathews declared to be ‘barbarous’. However, he describes what, in effect, was a successful mutiny by the boys when they rushed into the Head Master’s room and rescued a victim, making off in triumph with the Head’s cane.
Mathews went on to become a world-famous comedian, gifted at impersonations and ‘table entertainment’ – a single performer sitting at a table and telling stories and jokes, giving displays of mimicry, singing songs, and so forth. He gained fame in American and entertained King George IV, so it is not surprising that he should have been drawn by famous artists such as George Cruikshank and, it is rumoured, being the inspiration for a character in a Charles Dickens novel.
© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
Mathews is one of our lesser-known performers on the stage, but through this kind bequest to the Archive, we can remember him alongside more contemporary comedians and performers such Nigel Lindsay, Philip Simon and Matt Kirshen who all practise comedy today.