Note 14 — Introductory material

The Reverend Theobald Mathew, the famous advocate and apostle of Temperance, was born at Thomastown, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, October 10, 1790. He was ordained in 1814, and was appointed to a chapel in Cork. Here he interested himself much in the condition of the poor, and in 1838, his attention having been called by a Quaker to the evils of drunkenness, he began his famous total abstinence campaign, enrolling in the course of five months one hundred and fifty thousand converts. On one visit to Galway he administered the pledge to one hundred thousand persons in one day. His influence over the working classes, especially of the Irish, was enormous, and the amount of good he did is incalculable. He did not confine his exertions in the cause of temperance to Ireland, but visited England and America. He died December 8, 1856.