James Mathews was a marine in the 32nd (Portsmouth) Company when he arrived at Sydney aboard the Supply in January 1788 as part of the First Fleet. He was discharged to the Port Jackson detachment.
Mathews was sent to to Norfolk Island on the Supply in March 1790. Enlisting in the New South Wales Corps on 6 April 1792, he returned to Norfolk Island. He was discharged on 6 April 1797 and received a 175 acre grant of land at Mulgrave Place in New South Wales in October 1799. He was mustered as a landholder in 1800 but no details of stock or cultivation were given. No later mentions of Mathews have been found in colonial records. He probably died, or sold his land and left the colony.
* information from Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet (1989), p 242
'Mathews, James (?–?)', People Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/mathews-james-31494/text38949, accessed 27 July 2024.