Political stalwart Joe Matthews dies
2010-08-19 14:30
ANC and IFP veteran and former deputy minister Joe Matthews has died in a Johannesburg hospital.
Matthews, who retired from Parliament in 2004, was 81.
The son of legendary African National Congress leader ZK Matthews, Vincent Joseph Gaobakwe Matthews was born on June 17, 1929, in Durban.
His career in politics and the legal profession spanned six decades after he joined the ANC Youth League as a teenager in 1944.
He was to leave the organisation almost 50 years later, joining the Inkatha Freedom Party in 1993 after the ANC split with that party’s leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
It was with the IFP that Matthews served as deputy safety and security minister – from 1994 up to his retirement a decade later – in the Cabinets of former president Nelson Mandela and his successor, Thabo Mbeki.
Matthews and his father were among the 156 accused, along with Mandela, Walter Sisulu and other senior ANC leaders, in the 1956 Treason Trial, which ended in 1961 with the acquittal of all involved.
After matriculating in Johannesburg in 1947, Matthews went on to obtain a BA degree from Fort Hare University in 1952, an LLB from the University of London in 1956, and a masters degree in history from the same institution 12 years later.
Passing the advocates’ admission exam in 1957, Matthews became an attorney of the Supreme Court the next year, and practised in Durban up to 1960, before moving to Lesotho. He later became assistant attorney-general in Botswana.
Matthews lived in The Netherlands from 1986 to 1991, when he returned to South Africa. He joined the IFP in 1992.
Away from the law and politics, Matthews enjoyed playing the piano, preferably classical music. He was widely travelled, and had written extensively for journals and other publications.
After his retirement, he lectured and served as a legal consultant.
Archival news items indicate that Matthews had in earlier years been admitted to hospital with diabetes-related complications.
His wife, Regina Thelma, died in 2002. The couple had seven children.
- SAPA