Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/454

Shaw  and Antiquities of Staffordshire’ came out in 1798, and the first part of the second volume was published in 1801; a few pages only of the second volume passed through the press. It contained many of his own illustrations, some of which had already appeared in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ and many unpublished plates are at the Salt Library, Stafford, and the British Museum (cf., Bibliotheca Staffordiensis, p. 397). A large-paper copy, with copious additions and corrections by S. P. Wolferstan, is at the British Museum. Copies on large paper have fetched 68l.

Shaw was elected F.S.A. on 5 March 1795, and on 27 April 1799 he succeeded his father in the rectory of Hartshorn. In the beginning of 1801 he offered his services in examining the topographical and genealogical manuscripts at the British Museum, and the librarian ‘by permission of the trustees engaged him at his own expense,’ but his early death in London on 28 Oct. 1802 put an end to his labours (Harl. MSS., second preface, pp. 31–2). His death was a ‘happy release;’ he is said to have died insane, partly from application and partly from vexation about his history (, Traditions, ii. 549).

A letter by Shaw is printed in Pinkerton's ‘Correspondence,’ i. 396–8, and he assisted Nichols in his ‘History of Leicestershire.’ He was passionately fond of music, and was a proficient in playing the violin. A portrait of him was published in January 1844.

 SHAW, THOMAS (1694–1751), African traveller, the son of Gabriel Shaw, a shearman dyer of Kendal, Westmoreland, was born on 4 June and baptised at Kendal on 18 June 1694. He was educated at Kendal grammar school, where he gained an exhibition, and matriculated from Queen's College, Oxford, on 5 Dec. 1711, aged seventeen, graduating B.A. in 1716 and M.A. on 16 Jan. 1720. Later in 1720 he went out as chaplain to the English factory at Algiers. During his thirteen years' residence there he made a series of expeditions to Egypt, the Sinaitic peninsula and Cyprus (1721), Jerusalem, the Jordan, and Mount Carmel (1722), Tunis, and the ruins of Carthage (1727), in addition to various excursions ‘in the interior of Barbary,’ or in other words in Algeria, Tripoli, and Morocco. In Barbary he relates that travelling was comparatively safe, but in the Holy Land the ‘wild Arabs’ were very numerous, and his caravan was insufficiently protected by four companies of Turkish infantry and four hundred ‘spahees,’ while his personal danger was enhanced by his practice of loitering to inspect curiosities. Having married Joanna, widow of Edward Holden, at one time consul in Algiers, who had given him every assistance in his travels in Africa, Shaw returned to England in 1733. He had in his absence been elected a fellow of Queen's College (1727). He proceeded B.D. and D.D. in the year after his return, and was presented to the vicarage of Godshill in the Isle of Wight. He was also elected a fellow of the Royal Society (13 June 1734), having contributed to the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ of 1729 ‘A Geographical Description of the Kingdom of Tunis.’ Four years later appeared his ‘Travels or Observations relating to several parts of Barbary and the Levant,’ Oxford, 1738, fol., a noble example of typography, illustrated by maps and plates, catalogues of animals, plants, fossils, coins and inscriptions, and a copious index. It was dedicated to George II, with a reference to the generous patronage of Queen Caroline. A plate of coins was dedicated to Dr. Richard Mead [q. v.] Dibdin calls the work ‘a safe inmate’ of a well-chosen collection. ‘Fly, fly,’ he says, ‘to secure it’ (Libr. Comp. 1824, ii. 48); it was especially esteemed on account of its illustrations of natural history, of classic authors, and of the scriptures. Shaw was no political observer, but a scholar, antiquary, and natural historian. He probably owed some botanical instruction to John Wilson (d. 1751) [q. v.] No less than 640 species of plants are described in his book. He also gives interesting descriptions of many mammals, of insects (especially of the locust swarms), and even of fishes. For his time his geological views are enlightened, while his conjectures on the subject of the pyramids have been fully confirmed by Belzoni and other investigators. Gibbon, in the ‘Decline and Fall’ (chap. xxiv.), honourably excepts him from the crowd of ‘blind’ travellers; his scrupulous fidelity was vindicated by James Bruce and by later African explorers (cf., Palestine, pref. and , White Slavery in the Barbary States). His accuracy was, however, impugned by Richard Pococke [q. v.] in his ‘Description of the East’ (vol. ii. 1745), and Shaw issued in 1746 ‘A Supplement … wherein some objections