Jim Matthews (writer)

Matthews was born in Ahaura, the son of Elizabeth Agatha (Pothan) Matthews and James Lindsay Matthews, a butcher.[1] He attended Wairoa School in Hawke’s Bay.[1] Between 1915 and 1917, he served in the army, rising to sergeant major.[1] In 1917, Matthews married Esme Elizabeth Hawke; they had a daughter and were divorced in the 1930s.[1]

After World War I, Matthews joined Wellington's daily newspaper, The Dominion, as a junior reporter.[1] Interested in horticulture, he wrote a weekly newspaper column under the pseudonym ‘The Hoe’.[1] He also lectured on horticulture at Victoria University College, was a founding member of the Wellington Beautifying Society (which planted trees around the city), and gave frequent talks on gardening.[1]

Matthews rose to become the paper's first news editor in 1934, remaining in that position for eight years.[1] That same year, Barbara Winifred Silver joined the paper as a cadet reporter; they married in 1938 and had two sons, Lewis and Julian, who both also became horticulturalists and writers.[1][2]

In 1941, the Matthews coauthored the very successful New Zealand Garden Dictionary, which went through multiple editions between 1941 and 1968.[1] Four years later, they left the newspaper to become freelance writers on gardening and horticultural subjects.[1] Jim started a new weekly column, "Garden with Matthews", that started out in the Dominion and later moved to the Evening Post.[1] His eyesight failed in the late 1960s, at which point Barbara took over the column, writing it until 1987, though it continued to appear under his byline.[1]

In 1944, Matthews founded a new monthly magazine, New Zealand Gardener.[1] Because of wartime paper shortages, a special Act of Parliament was needed to authorize it, and this went through because it was thought that such a magazine would help with food shortages by spurring more people to grow their own vegetables.[1] In addition to editing the magazine and writing for it, he authored several books on gardening subjects.

Matthews was interested in plant breeding and ran a flower business with Barbara that supplied Wellington flower shops with roses, proteas, and other blooms.[1][2]

In 1964, Matthews was made an associate of honour of the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture.[3]

In the 1950s, Matthews and his family lived in Waikanae on a property where the garden had been designed by the landscape architect Alfred William Buxton.[2]

Matthews died in Porirua in 1982.[1]

• The New Zealand Garden Dictionary (1941, with Barbara Matthews)
• Soil Fertility (1943)
• Garden Treasures (1947)
• Matthews on Gardening (1960)

• Photo of Jim and Barbara in the collection of the New Zealand National Library