Matthias Mawson
Matthias Mawson was an English clergyman and academic who served as List of masters of [Corpus Christi College, Cambridge|Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge] and subsequently as Bishop of Llandaff, Bishop of Chichester, and Bishop of Ely.
Life
He was born in August 1683, his father being a prosperous brewer at Chiswick, Middlesex. He was educated at St Paul's School, and was admitted in 1701 to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. 1704, M.A. 1708, B.D. 1716, D.D. 1725. He was a fellow of his college in 1707, and a moderator in the university in 1708. On 6 October 1724 he was appointed as master of his college, and held the office till 20 February 1744. Soon after his appointment he was presented by Bishop Thomas Green to the rectory of Conington in Cambridgeshire, and afterwards to that of Hadstock in Essex; the latter he held for many years. In 1730 and 1731 he was a reforming vice-chancellor of the university, in particular prohibiting the practice of exhuming bodies from the neighbouring churchyard, for dissection by medical students.After refusing the bishopric of Gloucester in 1734, Mawson was consecrated bishop of Llandaff, 18 February 1739. This diocese he administered for two years, and in 1740 was translated to Chichester. On the death of Sir Thomas Gooch in 1754, he was translated again, to Ely, where he remained for the rest of his life.
According to Arthur Collins' Peerage of England he married Penelope Compton, a daughter of Hatton Compton of Grendon Hall
in Northamptonshire, w:Lord [Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets|Lieutenant of the Tower of London] and a grandson of Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl of Northampton. However the Dictionary of National Biography states that he was unmarried. He died at his house in Kensington Square, 23 November 1770, aged eighty-seven years and three months, having been active and healthy until before his death. He was buried in his cathedral of Ely, and a monument was erected to his memory by his chaplain and executor, Dr. Warren.