The Tom Mathias Collection
Introduction
This remarkable collection of photographs represents the work of two exceptionally gifted photographers from different eras and from very different backgrounds. The original photographs were taken by Tom Mathias, a self-taught photographer who worked in the Cilgerran district of Pembrokeshire, West Wales, around the turn of the century. Using the simplest of equipment Mathias recorded daily life in the locality of his birth with insight and an affection which permeates all his work. Following Mathias's death in 1940 his negatives were lost for over thirty years until they were discovered by the second individual in the story, James Maxwell (Maxi) Davis. As a photographer, Maxi Davis's background could not have been more different to that of Mathias. He had spent most of his professional life as the Chief Photographer at the Royal Aircraft Establishment's rocket testing station at nearby Aber-porth, where he was familiar with the most sophisticated photographic technology. As a fellow photographer, however, he instantly recognized and appreciated the underlying quality of Mathias's work and using all the skills he had accumulated over a long and distinguished career, he set about the task of conserving and restoring the photographs. It is thanks to his efforts that Tom Mathias's photographs have been saved for posterity. Maxi Davis died in December 1990.
Thomas Mathias was born on 20 November 1866. His father, James, was a master mariner and the family lived at Bryndyfan in the hamlet of Pontrhyd-y-ceirt, near Cilgerran, in the Teifi valley. Tom lost his mother, Frances, at an early age and his father subsequently married Elizabeth, a much younger woman who was only eleven years Tom's senior. Tom had two sisters, Mary Ann and Jeanette, a half-sister Lizzie and a half-brother Johnny.
Virtually nothing is known of Tom's early life, or what kindled his interest in photography, an unlikely occupation for a young man of his background. He had no formal photographic training, yet by the time he had reached his early twenties he was confident enough of his own ability to advertise his services as a professional photographer. In 1897, he married Louise Alice Paquier, a Swiss/French governess employed by the Gower family of Castle Malgwyn. The couple settled in the nearby small-holding of Aberdyfan and Tom combined his career as a photographer with running the family farm.
They had two children, Frances Mattilda (Tilla), born in 1898 and James Henry born in 1902. Tilla eventually married and she and her husband settled in Cilgerran. She died at New Quay in 1990 at the ripe old age of 91. She had one daughter, Nesta, now living in San Antonio, Texas. James Mathias never married and remained in the family home until his death. Tom Mathias himself died in 1940, aged 73 and is buried at Llwyn Adda Chapel, Llechryd. His wife survived him by over a quarter of a century and died in 1966 at the age of 93.
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