Robert Henry Mathews

Robert Henry Mathews (1877–1970) was an Australian missionary and Sinologist, best known for his 1931 A Chinese-English Dictionary: Compiled for the China Inland Mission by R. H. Mathews, which was subsequently revised by Harvard University Press in 1943. He served with the China Inland Mission from 1906, before retiring to Australia in 1945.

Robert Henry Mathews was born in Flemington, now a suburb of Melbourne, Australia on 13 July 1877, to London-born William Mathews and Australian Mary Mathews, née Whitlaw. Mathews studied lithography at the Working Men's College of Melbourne, during which time he became interested in Christian missionary work. As an fervent Congregationalist, he was drawn to evangelism, especially the China Inland Mission (CIM). Although Mathews set up his own printing business after graduating, he abandoned it to join the CIM in 1906, receiving eighteen months' training in Adelaide where he ministered to the city's outcast poor.

Mathews left for China on 4 October 1908, stopping at the CIM headquarters in Shanghai for a short period before being despatched to Henan. In 1915 he was transferred to Huizhou (now a district of Huangshan), Anhui, where he is said to have found, as in Henan, "a peculiar lack of response to the Gospel message." Nevertheless, during his time in Anhui, Mathews' interest in the Chinese language deepened due to the variety of dialects he encountered.

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