Francis Mathew, 2nd Earl Landaff

Viscount Mathew and his brothers by Gillray, 1803: The Three Mr Wiggins's

Mural memorial tablet erected 1987 in Llandaff Cathedral: "In memory of Thomas James Mathew son and heir of Francis James Mathew second Earl of Landaff born in London 1798 died in Cape Town 1862". The arms are blasoned: Or, a lion rampant sable. Crest: A heathcock proper. Supporters: Two unicorns rampant silver maned tufted hooved collared and chained or. Motto: A Fynno Duw a Fydd ("What God wills will be")

Francis James Mathew, 2nd Earl Landaff KP (20 January 1768 – 12 March 1833), styled The Honourable Francis Mathew from 1783 to 1797 and Viscount Mathew from 1797 to 1806, was an Irish peer and politician.

Mathew sat for Tipperary in the Irish House of Commons from 1790 to 1792. He represented Callan between May and November 1796 and subsequently again Tipperary until the Act of Union in 1801. He was appointed a Knight of the Order of St Patrick on 24 November 1831.^[1]

Mathew succeeded his father in the earldom in 1806 and also took his father's place as an Irish Representative Peer in the House of Lords, while his younger brother Montague James Mathew (1773–1819) succeeded him as one of the two members of the UK parliament for County Tipperary.

As Lord Landaff, he was an opponent of the Union and a supporter of Catholic Emancipation, who was also "a personal enemy of George IV" and gave evidence in favour of Queen Charlotte regarding her conduct at the Court of Naples during her famous trial.

Lord Landaff married Gertrude Cecilia, a daughter of John la Touche, of Kildare. The marriage was childless. He died of syncope in Dublin on 12 March 1833, aged 65, when the titles became extinct. Dying intestate, his estates went to his sister, Lady Elizabeth Mathew, who died in 1842 leaving the fortune to a cousin, the Vicomte de Chabot, the son of her mother's sister Elizabeth Smyth.^[2]

References

1. Rayment, Leigh. "Knights of the Order of St Patrick". Retrieved 2008-12-13.
2. Sir Bernard Burke, A genealogical history of the dormant, abeyant, forfeited, and extinct peerages of the British empire (1866), p. 361