Edmund Douglass Jefferiss Mathews [also known as E.D. Jefferiss Mathews] was born in East Grinstead, Sussex, England on 10 July 1907. It is not known where and with whom he trained as an architect . He practised in London from the 1930s and was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA) in 1939. He was later admitted a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA). By the late 1930s he was a partner in the architectural firm J. Douglass Mathews & Partners, which had offices in 3 Ebury Street, London.
He gave an address on ‘The Economy of Architecture, Value in Context’ at the RIBA Conference in London in 1956. By 1987 Mathews was living in Newport on the Isle of Wight. He died in the Isle of Wight in 1992
Projects undertaken by Mathews and his firm included the proposed repair of St. Etheldreda church in Fulham, London (1936); Oxted & Limpsfield Hospital including a mortuary (with H. Edmund Mathews (1946); repair of St. Nicholas church in Godstone, Surrey (1949-52); and the repair of the north wall and provision of lavatories at St. Mary the Virgin church in Bletchingley, Surrey (1950-52); the conversion of No.10 Henrietta Street, London, into St. Peter’s Hospital for Stone’s Institute of Urology in 1954; additions to a small seventeenth century cottage in Kent (1955); ICI’s Technical Services and Development Laboratories in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire (with R.S. Poole, 1956); a factory for Aspro-Nicholas Limited, Slough (1956-58), a factory complex of H.J. Heinz Company Ltd. at Kitt Green, near Wigan in Lancashire, England (with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1958-59) and a factory for CIBA Laboratories Limited, Horsham (1958-59).