William Frederick MatthewsCGIA (7 January 1898 – 8 April 1977) was a leading British bookbinder. He trained at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London before being apprenticed at the bindery of W. T. Morrell & Co. He won a gold medal at the Paris exhibition of 1925 and started his own practice in 1926. He taught at the central school for nearly 50 years during which time his notable pupils included Edgar Mansfield, Roger Powell, and Bernard Middleton. He published two guides to bookbinding, and in 1976 was the first bookbinder to be awarded the City and Guilds of London Insignia Award (CGIA).
William Matthews was born on 7 January 1898[1] to a carpenter also named William Frederick and his wife Alice Mary Matthews.[2][3] In August 1921, he married Ellen Rawlinson at the parish church, Tooting, in London.[2]
He later taught at the central school for nearly 50 years, and trained Anthony Cains, Bryan Maggs, H. J. Desmond Yardley, Edgar Mansfield, Roger Powell, and Bernard Middleton.[4][6] In 1929, he published Bookbinding: A manual for those interested in the craft of bookbinding, and in the following year Simple Bookbinding for Junior Schools.
Alms for Oblivion: An antiquary's scrapbook by Mortimer Wheeler bound by Matthews in goat skin, 1970
He was described by Catherine Porter in Miller's Collecting Modern Books as "one of the greatest craftsmen of the 20th century", being particularly skilled in gold-tooling and lettering.[6] His work is generally noted for its "sober dignity" but with bindings produced for pleasure having a "joyful charm".[4] He favoured bindings in oasis Morocco with marbledend-pages from Morris Marbles of Oxford. Doublures and end leaves could be in Morocco, silk, or vellum. He did his own edge-gilding.[4] In 1970, he bound a copy of Mortimer Wheeler's Alms for Oblivion: An antiquary's scrapbook (1966) in olive-green goat skin with a sun design on the boards bordered by groups of overlapping radiating gilt lines. The book was presented by the author to the bookbinder Daphne Beaumont-Wright.[7]
A bound volume of his designs for book bindings is in the Bridwell Library of the Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology. It was bound by Matthews himself in full terra-cotta Morocco, and includes designs from 1928 to 1976, including the design for the binding.[8]
Matthews died in hospital on 8 April 1977.[9] His home at the end of his life was Track End, Admiral's Way (Admiral's Walk in probate entry), in Pirbright, Surrey.[9][10] His funeral was at St Michael and All Angels church in Pirbright, followed by cremation.[9] He left an estate of £27,328.[10] In 1978, his work was the subject of a joint exhibition with Edgar Mansfield at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.[11]
^William F Matthews in the 1939 England and Wales Register]. Ancestry.com Retrieved 20 March 2023. (subscription required)
^ abWilliam Frederick Matthews in the London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1938. Ancestry.com Retrieved 20 March 2023. (subscription required)
^London, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1923, Southwark, St Matthew, Newington, 1865-1920. Ancestry.com Retrieved 23 March 2023. (subscription required)
^ abcd"Matthews, William" in Geoffrey Ashall Glaister (1996) Encyclopedia of the Book. 2nd edition. New Castle: Oak Knoll Press. p. 318. ISBN 1884718140
^ ab"Matthews, William F." in Michael F. Saurez & H. R. Woudhuysen (Eds.) (2010) The Oxford Companion to the Book. Vol. 2 D-Z. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 919. ISBN 9780198606536
^ abPorter, Catherine. (2003) Miller's Collecting Modern Books. London: Miller's. p. 150. ISBN 1840007230
