William Gordon Mathews was a Federal judge and lawyer from Charleston, West Virginia, serving as Referee in Bankruptcy for Kanawha, West Virginia 1898-1908, and Clerk of the Court for Kanawha 1903-1904.
Background
William Gordon Mathews was born on February 26, 1877 in Lewisburg, West Virginia to Lucy Fry and Henry Mason Mathews. His father was governor of West Virginia, his paternal grandfather, Mason Mathews, was a Virginia Delegate, and his maternal grandfather, Joseph L. Fry, was a prominent West Virginia judge.
Education
He was educated at the Lewisburg Military Academy.
Career
His family was politically prominent in the Virginias. In 1895 he enrolled in Georgetown Law School for one year, afterward completing his degree at the University of Virginia School of Law, graduating in 1897 at 20 years of age. In 1897 he moved to Charleston, Kanawha County, and was admitted to the Bar.
In 1903 he served as the clerk of court for Kanawha County on the death of Judge F. A. Guthrie.
In 1908 he was selected as the Democratic Party"s nominee for the West Virginia Supreme Court, but was defeated with the Democratic ticket. In 1913 he became president of the West Virginia Bar Association.
He died in 1923. In his Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1929), historian J. West. Terry said of him:.
Membership
He was a member of the fraternities Phi Delta Phi and Phi Delta Theta. When the United States entered World War I, he was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson as the legal member of the District Board of the Southern District of West Virginia under the Selective Service Acting of May 18, 1917, and served in that capacity until the end of the war.