# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Mathews, Lloyd William

​MATHEWS, Sir LLOYD WILLLAM (1850–1901), general and prime minister of Zanzibar, born in 1850, was son of Captain William Mathews, one of the pioneers of the volunteer movement. Entering the royal navy in 1863 as a naval cadet, he became a midshipman on 23 Sept. 1866, and in 1868 was stationed in the Mediterranean.
He first saw active service In the Ashanti campaign of 1873-4. He received the war medal and won promotion to the rank of lieutenant. On 27 Aug. 1876 Mathews was appointed lieutenant on board H.M.S. London, which was engaged in suppressing the slave trade on the east coast of Africa. He proved himself a capable and enterprising officer, capturing many Arab dhows and receiving the thanks of the admiralty. He retired from the navy with the rank of lieutenant in 1881.
Meanwhile in 1877 he was selected to command the army of Bargash, the Sultan of Zanzibar, who wished his troops to be drilled on the European model. Mathews trained and equipped a military force of 1000 regulars and 5000 irregulars, and henceforth devoted his services entirely to the Zanzibar government. He was given the rank of brigadier-general in the Zanzibar army, and in 1881 he was successful in capturing the Arab slave dealers who had murdered Captain Brownrigg, R.N. Mathews retained the confidence of Bargash's successors, and devoted his main energies to urging the suppression of slavery. In 1889 a decree was issued purchasing the freedom of all slaves who had taken refuge in the sultan's dominions; and in 1890 the sale or purchase of slaves was prohibited in Zanzibar. In November following, in accordance with the Anglo-German convention, Zanzibar was formally declared a British protectorate. In 1891 Mathews was appointed British consul-general for East Africa, but he never took up the duties of the poet. He preferred to remain in the sultan's immediate service, and in October following he became prime minister and treasurer of the reconstituted Zanzibar government. Under his enlightened rule the machinery of administration was reorganised with a minimum of friction, and the old order of rapidly transformed. Mathews's personality impressed itself on sultans. In 1896, on the death of Sultan Hamed bin Thwain, he opposed the attempt of Khalid to seize the throne. The palace was bombarded by British warships and Khalid was compelled to submit. Mathews then secured the installation of Sultan Hamed bin Mahommed, who was entirely favourable to British interests (27 Aug. 1890). Thanks to the prime minister's reforming energies, the legal status of slavery was abolished in 1897, compensation ​being given to the slave owners. Farms were established for the cultivation of new products, and modern methods of agriculture were introduced. The value of his work was officially recognised by the British government. He was created C.M.G. in 1880, and raised to K.C.M.G. in 1894. In addition to these honours he held the first class of the Zanzibar order of the Hammudie, and the order of the crown of Prussia. Mathews's prestige remained unshaken till the end. His name became a household word throughout East Africa for strict justice and honest administration. He died at Zanzibar on 11 Oct. 1901, and was buried in the English cemetery outside the town.
[The Times, 12 Oct. 1901; Navy Lists; R. N. Lyne, Zanzibar in Contemporary Times (portrait, p. 100), 1905; Sir Gerald Portal, The British Mission to Uganda in 1893, 1894; H. S. Newman, Banani: the Transition from Slavery to Freedom in Zanzibar, 1898; E. Younghusband, Glimpses of East Africa and Zanzibar, 1910.]