MATY, PAUL HENRY, only son of Matthew Maty MD FRS, Principal Librarian, British Museum, and his first wife Elizabeth, dau. of Louis Chevalleau, Sieur de Boisragon; b. 18 Dec 1744; adm.; Min. Can. 1757; Edward Gibbon (adm. 1747/8, qv), in a letter to his father of 14 Dec 1758, writes that “I saw at her [Mrs Porten’s] house Dr Maty’s son, a little odd cur, and by an unexampled generosity I tipped the boy with a crown, and the father with a coal of fire” (Private Letters of Edward Gibbon, ed. Prothero, 1896, i, 18); KS (aged 13) 1758; Capt. of the School 1762; elected head to Trinity Coll. Cambridge 1763, adm. pens. 1 Jun 1763, scholar 25 Jun 1764, Worts travelling scholar 1767; 11th Wrangler 1767; BA 1767; MA 1770; Minor Fellow, Trinity Coll. 3 Oct 1768, Major Fellow 4 Jul 1770-5; Grand Tour (Italy) 1767-8; ordained deacon 23 Sep 1770, priest 26 May 1771 (both London); Chaplain to David Murray, 7th Viscount Stormont (S) (afterwards 2nd Earl of Mansfield) (qv), when British Ambassador at Paris; did not seek clerical preferment after 1776 owing to doubts about the Thirty-Nine Articles; FRS 16 May 1771, Foreign Secretary 13 Feb 1772 – 30 Jun 1774, Principal Secretary 30 Nov 1778 – 5 May 1778; Assistant Librarian, British Museum 1776-82, Under Librarian, Dept. of Natural History and Antiquities 1782; started The New Review 1782; compiler, A General Index to the Philosophical Transactions, vols 1-70; author of two translations and a volume of sermons; lic. to m. 15 Sep 1775 Harriet, dau. of Joseph Clerke, Wethersfield, Essex; d. 16 Jan 1787. DNB.