Myles Edward Mather

Born at Holywell in Flintshire [North Wales] in July 1849, Myles Edward Mather was the son of Thomas Mather, who at the time of the 1851 census described himself as a ‘County Magistrate & Smelter.’ Thomas died on 30 August 1853 when Myles was four years old.

1n 1871 Myles was an ‘Agricultural Student’ boarding at Bickmarsh Hall in Warwickshire. This was a private residence, not an institution, and Myles was the only resident so described.

On 26 March 1873 at the Douglas Hotel in Edinburgh ‘Myles Edward Mather, Esq., of Glen Druidh, Inverness, son of the late Thomas Mather, Esq., J.P., Glyn Abbot, Flintshire’ married ‘Lydia Elizabeth Kerr, eldest daughter of the Rev. David Sutherland, M.A., Ness Bank, Inverness’ (Liverpool Mail, 5 April 1873).

A son was born the following January at Glen Druidh, Inverness. (This is presumably now the Glendruidh House Hotel in Inshes.) There is no sign of this son on later censuses so perhaps he died in infancy.

By 1877 the family were living at Percy Lodge, Leamington, Warwickshire.

When the census was taken in 1881 the Mathers were living in Northumberland Road, Milverton, Warwickshire. Myles gave ‘Landed Property’ as his source of income. Also present on the night of the census was his two-year-old daughter Margaret, his three-month-old son Myles, a footman, a cook, a nurse, an under-nurse, and a coachman and his wife.

In 1884 Myles emigrated to the United States. He appears on the 1900 census as a naturalised American citizen living in Hueneme in Ventura County, California. Surprisingly, he was working as a ‘Farm laborer.’ There is no sign of any other family members. He describes himself as married but despite a question specifically asking about the number of children from the marriage, he makes no mention of his. His wife appears on the UK 1891 census living in Edinburgh; ten years later she was living in London’s Marylebone.

Myles Edward Mather died, aged 57, in July 1906 in Denver in the United States.

According to a local newspaper: ’Myles Edward Mather, a Welshman, fifty-seven years of age, who came from Los Angeles eight months ago, was found dead on a vacant lot in Denver July 10th. There was no evidence of suicide or foul play’ (Jefferson County Graphic, 20 July 1906).

Photographed by Collier and Park of Inverness in 1872.

An inked inscription verso in a period hand identifies the sitter and gives the date.