Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mathias, Benjamin Williams
MATHIAS, BENJAMIN WILLIAMS (1772–1841), divine, born on 12 Nov. 1772, was only surviving child of Benjamin Mathias, a native of Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, who settled in Dublin about 1760 as a woollen cloth manufacturer. Both his parents died when he was about ten. Entering Trinity College, Dublin, on 3 Oct. 1791, he was elected scholar in 1794, and graduated B.A. in 1796, M.A. in 1799 (College Register, where the name of his father is given as ‘Henry’). In 1797 he was ordained to the curacy of Rathfryland, co. Down, and in 1805 became chaplain of Bethesda Chapel, Dorset Street, Dublin, an appointment which he was compelled to resign through ill-health in May 1835. In doctrine he was a moderate Calvinist. Mathias died in Merrion Avenue, Dublin, on 30 May 1841, and was buried in the cemetery of Mount Jerome. His congregation erected a tablet to his memory in Bethesda Chapel and a monument in the cemetery. In January 1804 he married a daughter of Mr. Stewart of Wilmont, co. Down, by whom he had a family. Mathias, who was an eloquent preacher, wrote: 1. ‘An Inquiry into the Doctrines of the Reformation and of the United Church of England and Ireland, respecting the Ruin and Recovery of Mankind,’ 2 pts. 8vo, Dublin, 1814, which evoked replies by W. Eames in 1817, and a ‘Clergyman of the Church of England’ in 1818. 2. ‘Vindiciæ Laicæ, or the Right of the Laity to the unrestricted Reading of the Sacred Scriptures vindicated,’ 8vo, Dublin, 1827. 3. ‘A Compendious History of the Council of Trent,’ 8vo, Dublin, 1832. 4. ‘Popery not Catholicism, in Two Parts,’ 8vo, Liverpool, 1851, edited by his son, the Rev. W. B. Stewart Mathias. Part ii. is a reprint of ‘Vindiciæ Laicæ.’
His portrait, engraved after Martin Cregan, R.H.A., by J. Horsburgh, was prefixed to his ‘Twenty-one Sermons,’ 8vo, Dublin, 1838.
[Information from the Rev. John W. Stubbs, D.D.; Brief Memorials of the Rev. B. W. Mathias, 8vo, Dublin, 1842.]