Benjamin Williams Mathias MA (1772–1841), was a

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the second ...

priest, who founded in 1806 the Dublin Bible Society which became the

Hibernian Bible Society The Hibernian Bible Society (originally known as the Dublin Bible Society) was founded in Dublin, Ireland in 1806, to encourage a wider circulation of the Bible in Ireland. The first meeting was held at the Royal Exchange, Dublin, on 10 November ...

. Born in Dublin on 12 November 1772, he had a presbyterian upbringing. His father Benjamin Mathias, worked in the Wollen industry was originally of Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales. He studied at

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

from 1791 to 1796, where he met and was influenced by Dr. John Walker. He was ordained a curate for

Drumgooland Drumgooland is a civil parish in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is situated mainly in the historic barony of Iveagh Upper, Lower Half, with one townland in the barony of Iveagh Lower, Lower Half. Settlements The civil parish contains the fol ...

, Co. Down in 1797,From Awakening to Secession: Radical Evangelicals in Switzerland and Britain, 1815-35' by Timothy Stunt, Bloomsbury Publishing,2000. where Rev. Tobais Tighe was rector. He a leading figure in the evangelical movement in the Church of Ireland. He served as Chaplain to the Bethesda Chapel, Dublin from 1805 succeeding Dr. Walker, until 1835(resigning due to ill-health) and its subsidiary Schools, Asylum and Lock Penitentiary, keeping the chapel within the established church, eventually in 1825 getting officially licensed by the Church of Ireland, despite the evangelical zeal of many of its attendees and preachers who seceded. On behalf of the society, Mathias traveled widely throughout the country, and he was a founder member of the Hibernian Church Missionary Society (1814) for evangelism overseas. Mathias befriended the family of the mathematician Sir

William Rowan Hamilton Sir William Rowan Hamilton Doctor of Law, LL.D, Doctor of Civil Law, DCL, Royal Irish Academy, MRIA, Royal Astronomical Society#Fellow, FRAS (3/4 August 1805 – 2 September 1865) was an Irish mathematician, astronomer, and physicist. He was the ...

, whom he christened in 1805 in Bethesda Chapel, in the parish of St. Mary's.Library Ireland, St. Mary's Parish
/ref> He retired from Bethesda in 1835 due to ill health and died in 1841.

Publications

* ''A Compendious History of the Council of Trent'' by Benjamin Williams Mathias, published by William Curry, 1832.
Memorials of Rev. B. W. Mathias, late chaplain of Bethesda
published by William Curry, 1842.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mathais, Benjamin Williams 1772 births 1841 deaths 19th-century Irish Anglican priests Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Irish evangelicals Christian clergy from County Dublin