Thomas Mathews was an American Revolutionary War general and Virginia lawyer and politician. For almost two decades, Mathews represented variously Norfolk Borough and Norfolk County in the Virginia House of Delegates, and served as that body's Speaker from 1782 until 1793. He also represented Norfolk at the Virginia Ratifying Convention of 1788.

The Virginia Ratifying Convention was a convention of 168 delegates from Virginia who met in 1788 to ratify or reject the United States Constitution, which had been drafted at the Philadelphia Convention the previous year.