Antony Stuart Mathews was born in Pretoria in 1930. He studied for the BA degree through Unisa, and in 1955 moved to Pietermaritzburg where he was one of the outstanding graduates of the University, being awarded a BA with distinction, an LLB cum laude and a PhD.

After a brief period in practice as an attorney, he was appointed a lecturer in the Department of Law in Pietermaritzburg in 1959, becoming senior lecturer in 1961 and head of the Durban Department in 1965. He remained in the Durban centre for almost twenty years, becoming Head of the Department of Private Law and serving several terms as Dean and Deputy Dean until 1983, when he moved to Pietermaritzburg as James Scott Wylie Professor of Law.

Mathews established a reputation as one of the foremost civil rights lawyers of his generation, publishing his highly respected works Law Order and Liberty in South Africa and The Darker Reaches of Government. In his writings he criticised the government’s detention without trial laws and questioned the commitment of the Appeal Court to personal liberty, becoming an internationally recognised authority in human rights and internal security law. His work contributed towards creating a human rights ethos in the Law Faculty, which at times made it unpopular with the government and certain members of the profession.

His activities outside the University included serving on the national executive of the Liberal Party, as national vice-president of the South African Institute of Race Relations and president of the Society of University Teachers of Law. Anthony Mathews died in 1993.