John Mathew

John Mathew (31 May 1849 – 11 March 1929) was an Australian Presbyterian minister and anthropologist, author of "Eaglehawk and Crow" and "Two Representative Tribes of Queensland".

[1] In 1864 Mathew migrated to Queensland, Australia, with a brother and sister, to live with their uncle John Mortimer on his station, Manumbar, on the Burnett River.

[1] Mathew moved to Victoria, Australia, and graduated from the University of Melbourne (B.A., 1884; M.A., 1886) with first-class honours despite working at times as a tutor and station-manager.

This publication was criticised (as Mathew had expected) by the ethnographers Walter Baldwin Spencer, Alfred William Howitt and Lorimer Fison.

[1] Although his linguistic studies and ethnographic reporting are still well regarded (as of 1986), his controversial theory of a tri-hybrid origin of Australian Aboriginal peoples is not supported by current data.