John Mathew

John Mathew (31 May 1849 – 11 March 1929) was an Australian Presbyterian minister and anthropologist, author of "Eaglehawk and Crow" and "Two Representative Tribes of Queensland".[1]

For other people named John Mathew, see John Mathew (disambiguation).

John Mathew, Presbyterian minister and anthropologist

Mathew was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, the fourth child (and eldest son) of Alexander Mathew, a factory overseer, and his wife Jean, née Mortimer.[1] Mathew was initially educated at Kidd's school, Aberdeen,[1] at nine years of age his father died and went to live with his maternal grandmother at Insch[2] then at the Insch Free Church School where he was a pupil-teacher from 1862 to 1864.[1]

Mathew migrated to Queensland, Australia, with a brother and sister in 1864 to live with their uncle John Mortimer on his station, Manumbar, on the Burnett River. Mathew worked there for six years as a Stockrider, bookkeeper, and storeman becoming familiar with the culture and language of the Kabi and Wakawaka (see List of Indigenous Australian group names#W people.[1]

Mathew then tried gold-digging for two years and then worked as a teacher at Dalby, Queensland (1872–75) and the Brisbane Normal School (1875–76). Then he moved to Victoria, Australia and graduated from the University of Melbourne (B.A., 1884; M.A., 1886) with first-class honours despite working at times as a tutor and station-manager.[1]

As a Presbyterian minister, Mathew worked at Ballan, Victoria from 1887 for two years, then at Coburg, Victoria from 1889 to 1923.[1]

In 1889 Mathew won the prize and medal of the Royal Society of New South Wales for an essay titled 'The Australian Aborigines'. This was the basis for his best-known publication, Eaglehawk and Crow (1899). This publication was criticized (as Mathew had expected) by the ethnographers Walter Baldwin Spencer, Alfred William Howitt and Lorimer Fison. There was however, more support from Daisy Bates and Robert Hamilton Mathews.[1]

Mathew returned to Queensland in 1906, visiting the Kabi and Wakawaka people at the Barambah Government Aboriginal Station. He published Two Representative Tribes of Queensland (1910) and although his linguistic studies and ethnographic reporting are still well regarded, his controversial theory of a tri-hybrid origin of Australian Aborigines is not supported by current data.[1]

References
  1. Prentis, M. D. (1986). "John Mathew". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Melbourne University Press. ISSN 1833-7538. Retrieved 2 June 2012 – via National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
  2. Serle, Percival (1949). "Mathew, John". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. Retrieved 2 June 2012.
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