Thomas Mathewson was one of Gympie’s important early pioneers, remembered less as a miner or landholder than as a photographer who documented the town’s earliest years. He established a studio in Gympie in 1868 and remained there until 1872, leaving behind some of the earliest visual records of the district, including the first significant photographic record of a Gympie flood in March 1870.
Early Life and Arrival In Australia
Thomas Mathewson was born in Helensburgh, Scotland on the 7th September 1842 as the fourth son of Thomas and Mary Mathewson (nee Inglis). When both Thomas’s parents contracted tuberculosis, the family decided to move to Australia to improve their health.
Thomas and his family arrived in Australia in 1852, he was 11 years old. The family had left Liverpool on the ‘America’ ship and arrived at Moreton Bay on the 10th January 1853 after a voyage of 135 days. The family travelled by bullock to a sheep property in the St George area called ‘Warkon’ where they remained for a year. The family then moved to Ipswich and not long afterwards both his parents passed away. He was only 12 years old. His local church stepped in and the children were placed with the Cribb and Foote families who were incredibly wealthy.
Mathewson spent his early teen years training as a carpenter before realising his talent as a photographer.
Thomas Mathewson and his wife Jane Barker Reeve
Gympie Photographer and Pioneer
Mathewson began professional photography in the 1860s and quickly built a reputation as an itinerant photographer who travelled with his equipment, tents, and a willingness to work in frontier settlements. He used the wet plate process, which required skill, patience, and careful timing, making photography a highly specialised trade in that era.
Over time, he opened studios in many Queensland towns, including Ipswich, Toowoomba, Maryborough, Gympie, Rockhampton, Charters Towers, Townsville, and Bowen. By the late 1870s he had settled more permanently in Brisbane, but his earlier travel through regional Queensland helped create a photographic record of communities as they developed.
Gympie Years
Mathewson arrived in Gympie in 1868, only a few years after gold discovery had transformed the area into one of Queensland’s most important mining towns. His studio was located on Commissioners Hill, along what is now associated with Channon Street, placing him close to the heart of the early township.
He stayed in Gympie until 1872, and during that time he photographed streets, buildings, people, and major local events. One later-donated image of Mary Street from 1868 became part of Gympie’s local history collection, showing how valuable his work became to the town’s memory. His photographs of the March 1870 flood are especially significant because they are regarded as the first major photographic record of a Gympie flood. For a goldfield town built beside the Mary River, those images captured both the danger and the resilience of the settlement.
Thomas Mathewson’s famous image of the flood in Gympie 1870
Lasting Legacy in Gympie Memory
Mathewson’s importance lies in both what he photographed and when he photographed it. He recorded Gympie at a formative moment, before later development altered the streetscape, and his images remain crucial evidence for historians, libraries, and family researchers.
His career also shows the broader role of photographers in colonial Queensland. They were not just image-makers; they were documentarians of frontier life, civic progress, and public identity, and Mathewson was among the most prolific of them.
The Mathewson name continued in Australian photography well beyond Thomas’s own career, with the family business evolving through later generations. That long continuity reinforces the standing of Thomas Mathewson not merely as a Gympie visitor, but as a founder of a photographic tradition with deep Queensland roots.
For Gympie, Mathewson matters because he helped preserve the town’s earliest story in visual form. His photos provide a rare window into the gold rush era, flood events, and the everyday streetscape of a young Queensland settlement.
He belongs in Gympie history alongside miners, storekeepers, builders, and civic leaders because he gave the town something many pioneering communities lost: a clear visual memory of itself. That makes Thomas Mathewson one of Gympie’s most valuable historical figures, even if his work was done behind a camera rather than at a mine face.
Family and Legacy of Thomas Mathewson
Thomas Mathewson married Jane Barker Reeve on the 22nd September 1880, they had six children. He passed away in Brisbane on the 12th May 1934 aged 93. His legacy in photography lived on with his granddaughter and daughter-in-law also practicing photography professionally.
Descendants of Thomas Mathewson
- John ‘Jack’ Trevallon Mathewson 1891 – 1974 married Leila Gwendolyn ‘Gwen’ Davis (1891 – 1978)
- Ethel Mary Mathewson 1883 – 1975 she married John Percival North and had three daughters and one son, Dorothy Isabel North (1917 – 2002), Hilda Alison North (1910 – 2012) and Betty Elvina North (1919 – 2014), Howard Reeve North (1915 – 2011).
- Jessie Inglis ‘Glis’ Mathewson 1885 – 1969 married Arthur Samuel Dunmore Cribb (1869 – 1924), their children are John Leonard Dunmore Cribb (1907 – 1935), Lucy Jean Dunmore Cribb (1909 – 2002), Irene Glis Dunmore Cribb (1911 – 1986), Thomas Henry Dunmore Cribb (1913 – 1977), Essie May Dunmore Cribb (1916 – 2005) and Mary Ruth Dunmore Cribb (1919 – 2014)
- Allison Jane Mathewson 1889 – 1932
- Thomas Henry ‘Harry’ Reeve Mathewson 1881 – 1975 married Annie Keid, one child is listed, Annis Gwen Mathewson (1914 – 2009)
- Herbert Peter Mathewson 1887 – 1974 married Edith Roselie Archer (1886 – 1944), they had four children, Thomas Eric Herbert (1909 – 1980), Henry Keith (1912 – 1983), Jack Clifford (b 1918) and Nancy Clare (b1919)
Surnames Associated with the Mathewson Family in Gympie
Family Associated Surnames: Inglis, Barker, Reeve, Keid, Archer, Cribb, North
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