Jim Matthews

James William Matthews (26 September 1895 – 26 March 1982), was a New Zealand newspaper editor, gardening writer, and horticulturist. In the 1940s, he founded the monthly magazine New Zealand Gardener. Biography Matthews was born in Ahaura, the son of Elizabeth Agatha (Pothan) Matthews and James Lindsay Matthews, a butcher. He attended Wairoa School in Hawke’s Bay. Between 1915 and 1917, he served in the army, rising to sergeant major. In 1917, Matthews married Esme Elizabeth Hawke; they had a daughter and were divorced in the 1930s. After World War I, Matthews joined Wellington's daily newspaper, The Dominion, as a junior reporter. Interested in horticulture, he wrote a weekly newspaper column under the pseudonym ‘The Hoe’. 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. Matthews rose to become the paper's first news editor in 1934, remaining in that position for eight years. 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.