Get the biggest stories sent straight to your inbox Sign up for regular updates and breaking news from WalesOnline Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

If Cardiff has its ghosts, they're of people who were already dead to society long before they met their inevitable and pitiful ends.

In Victorian times the city's streets reverberated to the sound of those for whom a spell in jail or a knife in the guts were just occupational hazards.

They were thieves, vagabonds, prostitutes and ne'er-do-wells, all of whom hung out in the no-go enclaves of brothels, beerhouses and blind alleys that made up the dark side of the Welsh capital, an area which few law-abiding folk dared to visit.

And chief among those was Mad Jack Matthews, dubbed 'King of the Rowdies' and the 'terror of the town' - a pimp, loan shark and Fagin-like fencer of stolen goods who ruled the mean streets of South Wales with his hulking physique, fearsome temper and quick fists.

Indeed, here was a man whose infamy was sealed the night he was set upon by several police officers who raided one of the many drinking dens he owned.

(Image: Cardiff Libraries)

Keen to bust the prostitution ring running there, they savagely beat him with their night sticks, leaving him a battered mess on the cobbles.

But, just as it seemed he was done for, Matthews reportedly got up, covered in blood, and - with a wild look in his eye - snapped one of their truncheons in half with his bare hands, causing them all to flee.

How he ended up in Cardiff in the first place is more of a mystery, however.

Born in the north of Ireland in 1819, he was the product - or so he claimed - of his kitchen maid mother's tryst with a local noble man.

Growing up as an apprentice cutlery seller, he enlisted in the army to avoid facing the consequences of a vicious street fight he'd become embroiled in.

Stationed in England, it was soon clear that military discipline did not suit him and he ended up dishonourably discharged after numerous clashes with authority - which saw him flogged twice and locked up.

By the early 1840s though, seemingly by chance, Matthews ended up working around Cardiff sharpening scissors and razors for money.

A large red-haired man, he could be seen walking the streets, singing, "Razors to grind, scissors to grind," until, after a year - being something of a notorious penny pincher - he'd saved enough cash save to invest in a pub, namely The Foresters Arms on Adam Street.

He also bought up the adjoining three premises, which he set up linking together via a series of doors and passage ways - a trick he'd later repeat when he took over The Flying Eagle, also tellingly dubbed The Spread Eagle, on the city's notorious Charlotte Street.

A selection of press clippings from Jack Matthews' many court appearances:

Like the Garrison pub in Peaky Blinders, it would became the hub of Matthews' nefarious behaviour.

It was there that many a drunk sailor, after spending the night in one of the landlord's nearby lodging houses, would wake to find he had been robbed - often right down to everything but his underwear - by one of the local ladies of the night, who'd disappear back down the tenement's warren of escape routes.

Any items lifted from such unsuspecting customers were hidden in the pub and later fenced by Matthews, paying for his fetish for gold watches and diamond rings - items he often wore to court when up on various charges.

Yet very little would stick to him - public disorder, inciting violence etc - possibly because of the seemingly unending supply of those ready to perjury themselves in his defence.

Matthews only actually did time twice - both minor sentences - and any fines that landed in his lap were paid off from his ill gotten gains - he once pushed a wheelbarrow containing 4,800 farthings to the steps of the Town Hall, before tipping it out and yelling, "There's your bloody money."

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

He was also charged on numerous occasions with assault, particularly of his common law wife Ellen, 18 years his junior, who he'd often beat while drunk.

One time he knocked out three policemen who'd tried to intervene in the couple's squabbling, with Ellen later defending Jack in court by saying he'd had a bad reaction to one of the officers touching her breast in the melee.

Artist Anthony Rhys, from Beddau in Rhondda Cynon Taff, has been researching and writing a book on the inhabitants of Charlotte Street and the neighbouring Whitmore Lane for the last three years.

"Jack Matthews was the godfather of that whole Cardiff underworld and pretty much became so as soon as he moved in," he said.

"Actual photographs of people like Jack from around that time are as rare as hen's teeth - although, given how many times he was in trouble with the law and in and out of court, you'd think a mug shot existed somewhere.

"The only thing we have though is a very crude sketch made by a reporter who was sitting in on one of Jack's hearings.

"What's clear is that he must have been a heavily-built, hard man to have lived as long as he did - it was an age where, if you made it past five and got to 40, you'd done okay."

Ambitious but illiterate, Matthews tried to stand for Cardiff Borough Council, after accusing its members of being lazy and corrupt in their duties and vowing to oppose everything he felt was wrong with the the system.

Unsurprisingly, given his past behaviour, he wasn't given any support from the voters and polled last in a list of seven candidates.

He also got sued for the £1 he owed in hiring out a meeting room in which he and his 'followers' could congregate.

"He tried to paint himself as something of a social champion, a friend of the working man," adds Rhys. "And I suppose he was in that he'd provide shelter for those fresh from prison, albeit so he could put them on his payroll of pickpockets.

"And he'd often pay their sureties, becoming their guarantor, whenever they appeared in the dock.

"Jack also had genuine anger against the establishment and was convinced he could do a better job - he was fairly delusional, however, to think he had any chance of winning."

Ironically though, the same body he regarded as stymieing his attempts at advancement would ultimately prove his making - the council later purchasing Matthews' slum properties in order to demolish them as part of the Cardiff Improvement Act of 1875.

As a result, Charlotte Street and Whitmore Lane - both renowned 'dens of infamy, shoeless feet, broken heads and flat noses', where 'every stone of the pavement had been stained at one point with human blood' - were wiped from Cardiff's map forever.

(Image: Glamorgan Records Office)

But, in order to knock them down, Matthews had to be paid a fee - £2,400 to be exact, a whopping amount for 1878 - with which he retired comfortably to Severn Road in Canton.

"In the end, he had the ultimate revenge," said Rhys. "Those who'd tried to shut him down for years ended up paying him a small fortune to ship out.

"And with him went that whole district - it was a real end of an era."

Living out his final years in relative luxury, the world saw a different side to the man once called the "Biggest Ruffian in Cardiff."

Perhaps he became tempered by the tragedy which would dog his later life - Ellen died aged just 35, their daughter eloped with a circus performer, while his son by a later partner shot himself.

Meanwhile, Matthews' grandson, disabled from birth, would succumb to his condition at a very young age, despite all efforts to buy him the best medical care he could afford.

The infant would end up buried next to his second wife Elizabeth, a former brothel worker, in Cathays cemetery, with Matthews finally joining them both in 1888.

But before his passing he was said to have embraced religion and regularly had a friend sit by his bedside reading to him from the scriptures.

"Throughout his life Jack always showed remorse for his violent behaviour, which he blamed on an earlier head injury - although excessive alcohol consumption probably had a lot to do with it," said Rhys.

"Without that tendency to snap and go nuts - who knows? - he might have actually been a force for good."

Indeed, Matthews' obituary, published in the Cardiff Argus shortly after his death, made reference to this wasted opportunity.

"Matthews was a bad man," it read.

"But it has been said that the Devil is not so black as he's painted."

For more information about Victorian Cardiff, go to www.upsetvictorians.blogspot.co.uk or visit Anthony Rhys on Twitter@upsetvictorians