state until after the war when it was sold to a property agency in Covent Garden. It continued, on a small scale, until it was eventually wound up in the late 1970s. Personal life Matcham was a devoted if frequently absent husband and father. He married Maria Robinson, the daughter of his tutor, J. T. Robinson, on 9 July 1877 at St. James's Church, Pentonville. They had two daughters; Eveline, who was born in 1878, and Constance, in 1884. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Matcham listed an interest in music but admitted that although he owned a Stradivarius violin, he "wasn't particularly good with it". Another hobby was amateur dramatics and on occasion, the Matchams would stage minor pieces, for the entertainment of their neighbours, when they lived in Dollis Avenue, Finchley. From a review of Matcham's personal archives, Walker concludes that the architect was "a man of remarkable vigour and enthusiasm for life ... he possessed a tranquility of mind and a great sense of humour and fun." Of Matcham's eight siblings, two were notable: Charles Matcham (1862–1911) moved to America in 1881 and became a millionaire businessman within the civil engineering industry. His early work for the American Bell Telephone Company included the building of the first telephone exchanges in Europe and the introduction of the telephone to St. Petersburg and Riga where he personally installed Alexander II of Russia's phone system. Through his later work, he founded several concrete-making companies and invented a cement stone pulveriser for which he owned the patent. Sydney Matcham (1868–1957) moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he founded the Matcham Travel Bureau, the city's first travel agency. Legacy Matcham's theatres were often mocked by architects during the five decades after his death, and little care was taken by local authorities to preserve them during area regeneration programmes, particularly during the 1960s. It was only after 1970 that his buildings were taken seriously and, according to Mackintosh, his genius was widely recognised. In 1995 the Theatre Museum acquired in excess of 7000 of Matcham's drawings. Of these, around 500 are highly finished and represent over seventy-five theatres or cinemas and about one-sixth of his total life's output. The total number of theatres Matcham designed is unknown and has been the subject of much speculation. The architect Victor Glasstone estimated the architect's work to include 66 new theatres and the remodelling and restoration of