Mathews, Charles

Mathews, Charles (1776–1835), English actor and entertainer, who from childhood showed amazing powers of mimicry, joined to a most retentive memory and an intense desire to go on the stage. He made his first appearance in Dublin in 1794 and after some years in the English provinces, mostly under Tate Wilkinson at York, he appeared in London, at the Haymarket Theatre, in 1803, soon gaining an enviable reputation as an eccentric comedian. He later appeared at both Covent Garden and Drury Lane, and was much admired as Falstaff in Henry IV, Sir Archy MacSarcasm in Macklin's Love à la Mode, and Sir Peter Teazle in Sheridan's The School for Scandal. In 1808 he conceived the idea of the one-man entertainment in which he appeared in London and the provinces, as well as in America, for more than 20 years. The first of these was The Mail Coach Adventure; or, Rambles in Yorkshire, in which Mathews's second wife, the actress Anne Jackson (1782–1869), played a small part. From 1812 Mathews appeared alone in a series of entertainments which from 1817, when Mathews was in Brighton, became known as Mr Mathews at Home. These ‘At Homes’, given in London in the winter and throughout the provinces during the summer, became immensely successful. Originally a programme of comic songs linked together with depictions of eccentric characters based partly on observation, partly on intuition, they developed into short plays to which many writers of comedy contributed; though the overall product was always attributable to Mathews himself, except in such cases as the younger Colman's The Actor of All Work; or, First and Second Floor (1817), in which a manager is shown interviewing a number of applicants for a place in his company. This gave Mathews the opportunity of displaying his powers of mimicry in a bewildering series of totally dissimilar characters. He continued to appear on stage from time to time, in spite of being lame from a carriage accident which occurred in 1814, among his later parts being Goldfinch in Holcroft's The Road to Ruin and Dr Pangloss in the younger Colman's The Heir at Law. He returned to America for the last time in 1834, but was already in poor health and died at Liverpool on the return journey. By his second wife he was the father of the actor Charles James Mathews.