Matthew Gregson (1749-1824) was a Liverpool businessman and public figure, particularly associated with the Bluecoat School, the Liverpool Library, the Royal Institution, the Botanic Gardens and the Academy of Art. He is credited with introducing to Liverpool the art of lithography, which he used in his Portfolio of Fragments relative to the History and Antiquities of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster (1817); this work led to his election to the Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries. Gregson died at the age of 75, after a fall from a ladder in his library. The Gregson Memorial Institute, Garmoyle Road, Wavertree was opened by Isabella Gregson in 1897 in memory of her parents and other family members, to include accommodation for lectures, an art gallery and museum `for the promotion of Literature and the Arts and Sciences'. The collections were given to the University in 1906 and gradually transferred to the City Museums and University from 1933, before the sale of the Institute building to Liverpool Corporation in 1936. Material transferred from the Institute later occupied a specially equipped `Gregson Room' in the newly-built (1938) Harold Cohen Library.

Sources: Obituary in The Gentleman's Magazine, October 1824; Dictionary of National Biography.