James Tilly Matthews was a British merchant of Welsh and Huguenot descent who was committed to the Bethlem Royal Hospital in 1797 after developing politically charged delusions which led him to disrupt sessions of the House of Commons of Great Britain. These delusions were documented in an 1810 book titled Illustrations of Madness, including Matthews' belief that a group of spies were using an "air loom" to secretly torment him from a distance. Modern historians consider Matthews to be the first fully documented case of schizophrenia.

A persecutory delusion is a type of delusional condition in which the affected person believes that harm is going to occur to oneself by a persecutor, despite a clear lack of evidence. The person may believe that they are being targeted by an individual or a group of people. Persecution delusions are very diverse in terms of content and vary from the possible, although improbable, to the completely bizarre. The delusion can be found in various disorders, being more usual in psychotic disorders.