Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Matthews, Marmaduke
MATTHEWS, MARMADUKE (1606–1683?), Welsh nonconformist, was the son of Matthew Matthews (or Mathew Jones?) of Swansea, where he was born in 1606. He matriculated at All Souls' College, Oxford, on 20 Feb. 1623–4, and proceeded B.A. on 25 Feb. 1624–5, and M.A. on 5 July 1627 (Foster, Alumni Oxon.) In 1636 Laud, in the annual account of his province (Lambeth MSS. vol. 943; cf. Dr. Rees, Nonconformity in Wales, pp. 35–6), notes that he was vicar of Penmain in Gower, and was ‘preaching against all holy-days.’ He was ‘inhibited’ by the Bishop of St. Davids, and when proceedings were begun against him in the court of high commission, he fled to New England. He visited the West Indies, and finally became a ‘teaching-elder’ of the church of Maldon in New England. In 1658 he was induced by his friend and patron Colonel Philip Jones [q. v.], who chiefly supported his wife and family during his exile, to return to Swansea. He was appointed the minister of the parish of St. John's, Swansea, from which place he was ejected in 1662. He afterwards preached, by the connivance of the magistrates, ‘in a little chapel at the end of the town,’ and under the indulgence granted by Charles II to nonconformists in 1672, he took out a license to preach as an independent in his own house at Swansea (Rees, op. cit. p. 177). He died there about 1683. In his old age he was supported by his children, ‘of whom two or three were sober conformists’ (Calamy, Account, ed. 1713, ii. 732); one of them, Lemuel [q. v.], is separately noticed. Perhaps Edward Matthews, who matriculated at New Inn Hall, Oxford, on 11 July 1634, aged 19, and is described as a son of Matthew Jones of Swansea, was a younger brother of Matthews. Marmaduke was author of ‘The Messiah Magnified by the Mouthes of Babes in America,’ London, 1659, 8vo. It is dedicated to Philip, Lord Jones.
[Rees's Nonconformity in Wales, pp. 35, 36, 53–4, 177; Calamy's Account, ut supra; Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, 1500–1714; Matthews' Messiah Magnified, Ded.]