Matcham was born in Newton Abbot, Devon, where he became apprenticed at the age of 14 to the architect George Soudon Bridgman. Matcham moved to London, aged 21, where he joined the architectural practice of J. T. Robinson, who was to become his father-in-law. Under Robinson, Matcham completed his first solo design, the Elephant and Castle Theatre, which opened in June 1879. He took over the business on Robinson's death and continued the designs of various provincial theatres. He formed his own practice, Matcham & Co., in the 1880s and enlisted skilled craftsmen. His first major association came in the 1880s when he was employed to design and refurbish theatres belonging to the Revill family who owned many of the theatres throughout the UK at that time.