‘It is to be feared,’ says his biographer, ‘that the morals of the author would not discountenance the opinion.’ During the last years of his life he contributed much to ‘The Freeholder's Magazine’ and other periodicals, showing some gift for caustic annotation upon contemporary personalities and events. He died, ‘overwhelmed with complicated distress,’ at his house in Titchfield Street, Oxford Market, on 1 Sept. 1771. A selection of his work was printed in Anderson's ‘British Poets’ (1794, xi. 557), and also in Park's ‘British Poets’ (1808, xxxiii.), Whittingham's ‘British Poets’ (1822, lxiv. 47, with memoir by R. A. Davenport), and Sandford's ‘British Poets’ (1822, xxxi. 233).
[All that seems known of Shaw was communicated by an anonymous writer to the European Magazine, 1786, i. 14; cf. Gent. Mag. 1771, 456; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict.; Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Hill, iii. 140 n.; Pearch's Collection of Poems, ii. 219; Allibone's Dict.; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
SHAW, DUNCAN (1725–1795), Scottish divine, son of Lachlan Shaw [q. v.], minister of the parish church, Elgin, was born at Cawdor in 1725. He was educated at the Elgin Academy, and afterwards at King's College, Aberdeen, where he graduated in 1747. Continuing his theological studies, under a bursary won at Aberdeen, he went to Edinburgh University in 1749, and was licensed to preach three years later. In 1753 he was appointed minister to the parish of Rafford, Elginshire. There he remained for thirty years, until, in November 1783, he went to Aberdeen, as third of the ministers attached to the parish church. He filled this place until his death, on 23 June 1795. In 1774 Marischal College, Aberdeen, conferred upon him the title of doctor of divinity, and in 1786 the general assembly of the church elected him moderator. He married, in 1754, Jean, daughter of George Gordon, minister of Alves, Elgin, and she survived him one year. By her he had three sons and four daughters.
Shaw was ‘a sensible and learned man’ (Nichols, Lit. Illustr. iv. 823), and it was largely owing to his interest that Alexander Adam [q. v.] was able to rise from a Rafford croft to the rectorship of the high school, Edinburgh. His learning was in historical theology, and his chief works were: 1. ‘A Comparative View of the Several Methods of promoting Religious Instruction, from the earliest down to the Present Time,’ London, 1776, 2 vols. 2. ‘The Philosophy and History of Judaism,’ Edinburgh, 1787, a defence of the Mosaic system against Hume. 3. ‘The Centurion,’ Edinburgh, 1793.
[Hew Scott's Fasti, iii. 187, 472; New Statistical Account (Elginshire), p. 245; Stevens's Hist. of the High School of Edinburgh, p. 109.]
SHAW or SHAA, Sir EDMUND (d. 1487?), lord mayor of London, was the son of John Shaa of Dunkerfield in Cheshire. He was a wealthy goldsmith and prominent member of the Goldsmiths' Company, of which he served the office of master. He was elected sheriff in 1474, and on his presentation the members of his company escorted him to Westminster (Herbert, Twelve Great Livery Companies, ii. 219). Shaa became alderman, and in 1485 migrated to the ward of Cheap, on the death of Sir Thomas Hill through the ‘sweating sickness.’ He was elected mayor in 1482, and towards the close of his mayoralty he took an active part in influencing the succession to the crown on the death of Edward IV. Shaa probably had financial dealings with the crown, and his intimacy with Edward IV appears from a bequest in his will for an obit for the soul of that ‘excellent prince’ and his sister, the Duchess of Exeter. He became nevertheless a strong supporter of Richard III, who made him a privy councillor, and whose claims to the throne he and his brother (see below) were doubtless largely instrumental in inducing the citizens to adopt. Shaa appears to have resided in Foster Lane, where, and in the neighbouring West Chepe, the goldsmiths kept their shops. He possessed, and probably occupied, the great mansion, with its adjoining tenements, in Foster Lane, in which Sir Bartholomew Reid had lived (ib. ii. 253).
He died about 1487, and was buried in the church of St. Thomas of Acon, where he founded a chantry for the souls of his wife Juliana (who died in 1493), his son Hugh, and others (Sharpe, Calendar of Husting Wills, ii. 612). This trust, with many singular injunctions attached, he placed under the charge of the Mercers' Company (Watney, Account of the Hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, pp. 51–3). His will, dated 20 March 1487, was proved in the P. C. C. (Milles 12). Full effect was given to his intentions under the will of Stephen Kelk, goldsmith, who administered Shaa's bequest under an agreement with his executors (Watney, p. 53; Prideaux, Goldsmiths' Company, i. 33–4). One of these executors, John Shaa, goldsmith, may have been the Sir John Shaa (knighted on Bosworth Field and made a banneret by Henry VII) who was lord mayor in 1501, or a near relative. By another will, not enrolled, Shaa left four hundred marks for rebuilding Cripplegate, which was carried out by his executors in 1491. He also left
