Arthur Kenneth Mathews was

Dean of St Albans The Dean of St Albans is the head of the Chapter of St Albans Cathedral in the city of St Albans, England in the Diocese of St Albans. As the Dean of St Albans is also the Rector of St Albans, with parochial responsibilities for the largest paris ...

from 1955 until 1963.
He was born into an ecclesiastical family on 11 May 1906 and educated at

Monkton Combe School (Thy Word is Truth) , established = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , founder = The Revd Francis Pocock , head_label = Head Master , head ...

and

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

, where he met his future brother-in-law

Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor (9 April 1903 – 29 March 1984) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster-General from 1961 to 1962 and — following the "Night of the Long Kni ...

through the Balliol Boys' Club, of which they were successively president. He was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform va ...

in 1933. His first post was as a

Curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' (''cura'') ''of souls'' of a parish. In this sense, "curate" means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy w ...

Penistone Penistone ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, which had a population of 22,909 at the 2011 census. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is west of Barnsley, n ...

after which he was

Padre __NOTOC__ Padre means father in many Romance languages, and it may also refer to: Music * "Padre" (song) People * A military chaplain * A Latin Catholic priest * A member of the San Diego Padres baseball team Places * Padre Island, a barrier i ...

to the Tanker Fleet of the ''Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company'' and then

Vicar A vicar (; Latin: ''vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pref ...

Forest Row Forest Row is a village and a large civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England. The village is located three miles (5 km) south-east of East Grinstead. History The village draws its name from its proximity to the Ashdo ...

. When

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

came he enlisted as a

Chaplain A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a Minister (Christianity), minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a laity, lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secularity, secular institution (such as a hosp ...

in the

RNVR The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Ro ...

during which he served on HMS Norfolk and was decorated twice for gallantry - in successful engagements against the German battleships Bismarck (in 1941) and Scharnhorst (in 1943). When peace returned he was

Rogate Rogate is a village and civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England, in the Western Rother valley. The village is on the A272 road west of Midhurst and east of Petersfield, Hampshire. The civil parish includes the villages o ...

(1946–54) and

Rural Dean In the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion as well as some Lutheran denominations, a rural dean is a member of clergy who presides over a "rural deanery" (often referred to as a deanery); "ruridecanal" is the corresponding adjective. ...

Midhurst Midhurst () is a market town, parish and civil parish in West Sussex, England. It lies on the River Rother inland from the English Channel, and north of the county town of Chichester. The name Midhurst was first recorded in 1186 as ''Middeh ...

(1950–54) before his elevation to the

Deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residenc ...

. After this he was

Rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

of St Peter’s,

Peebles Peebles ( gd, Na Pùballan) is a town in the Scottish Borders, Scotland. It was historically a royal burgh and the county town of Peeblesshire. According to the 2011 census, the population was 8,376 and the estimated population in June 2018 wa ...

(1963–68) and Vicar of Thursley (1968-1976) before retiring in 1976. "A sailor's padre to the end", he died on 18 December 1992. He was married twice: in 1936 to Agnes Elisabeth (Betty) Butler (who died in 1981) and in 1987 to Diana Goschen (who survived him).Admiral Bell Davies was his best man at his second wedding. In the obituary notice he wrote: "As best man at that wedding I had a problem explaining to Ken on which side of the bride he should stand. He was confused by the fact that, as a parson, he normally saw the happy couple the other way around. Eventually, I got it across to him - 'Starboard side, Ken'." He had no children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mathews, Arthur Kenneth 1906 births People educated at Monkton Combe School Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II Officers of the Order of the British Empire Recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom) Deans of St Albans 1992 deaths People from Penistone World War II chaplains Royal Navy chaplains People from Forest Row