John Shaw Sr. (1776–1832) was an English architect. He was architect to
Christ's Hospital
Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 1553. ...
in London, and to the
Port of Ramsgate
The Port of Ramsgate (also known as Port Ramsgate, Ramsgate Harbour, and Royal Harbour, Ramsgate) is a harbour situated in Ramsgate, south-east England, serving cross-Channel freight traffic and smaller working and pleasure craft. It is owned an ...
. Many of his works, including the church of
St Dunstan-in-the-West in Fleet Street, London, were in a Gothic Revival style.
Early life and career
Shaw was born in
Bexley
Bexley is an area of south-eastern Greater London, England and part of the London Borough of Bexley. It is sometimes known as Bexley Village or Old Bexley to differentiate the area from the wider borough. It is located east-southeast of Ch ...
, Kent in 1776. His father, also named John Shaw, was a surgeon, and his mother, Elizabeth Latham, was from a wealthy landowning family. He moved to
Southwark, Surrey and trained under the architect
George Gwilt
George Gwilt (1746–1807), also sometimes known as George Gwilt the Elder, was an English architect, particularly associated with buildings in and around London.
His sons George and Joseph were also architects, training in his office in Southwa ...
the elder. It is thought that Shaw and Gwilt were related as Gwilt had married a Sarah Shaw, and it is quite possible that the two architects were cousins.
In 1799 Shaw married a cousin, Elizabeth Hester Whitfield, who was from a missionary family, at St George's, Hanover Square, in London
Architectural works
Gothic mansions
Shaw worked with
Humphrey Repton
Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of ...
, remodelling
Lord Uxbridge's property at Beaudesert, and was later employed to redesign parts of
Newstead Abbey
Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire, England, was formerly an Augustinian priory. Converted to a domestic home following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it is now best known as the ancestral home of Lord Byron.
Monastic foundation
The prio ...
in Nottinghamshire by Colonel
Thomas Wildman
Colonel Thomas Wildman (1787 – 1859) was a British Army officer during the Napoleonic Wars, a draftsman, and landowner.
Life
He was the eldest son of Thomas Wildman of Bacton Hall, Suffolk, by Sarah, daughter of Henry Hardinge, of Durham ...
who had just bought the estate from
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
. Between 1821 and 1826 he rebuilt
Ilam Hall in Staffordshire in the Gothic style for the manufacturer Jesse Watts Russell.
Christ's Hospital
In 1816 Shaw was appointed architect to
Christ's Hospital
Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 1553. ...
school,
then sited in
Newgate Street in the
City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...
. In 1825 the governors of the school asked him to build a new great hall for the school. He employed a gothic style, with buttresses, battlements and pinnacles, designing a large rectangular building, with octagonal towers housing staircases at either end. The Great Hall itself, long, was on the upper floor, lit by nine large windows filling the spaces between the buttresses. Various other functions were housed in ground floor and basement. Along the front of the ground floor, facing Newgate Street, was an open granite arcade long, built of granite. The upper parts of this frontage were of
Portland stone, while the rest of the building was brick.
Charles Locke Eastlake commented
Neither in the basement nor in any part of the building which is out of public sight were any pains taken to preserve a structural consistency of design. The Gothic of that day was, it must be confessed, little better than a respectable deception. It put a good face on its principal elevations, but left underground offices and back premises to take care of themselves.
Shaw also built school's infirmary (1822), and the "New Schools", a block in a Tudor style, in yellow brick with stone facings. This had a covered cloister running along the front, and staircases at each end of the building housed in rectangular projections surmounted by pinnacles and domes. All these buildings were demolished when the site was cleared for new buildings for the General Post Office, following the school's removal to
Horsham in 1902.
Ramsgate
As architect to
Ramsgate Harbour in
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
he designed the clock house, the Jacob's Ladder stairway and an obelisk commemorating
King George IV
George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten ye ...
passing through the port on a journey to Hanover.
St Dunstan-in-the-West
Shaw's last work, considered his
masterpiece, is the church of
St Dunstan-in-the-West on
Fleet Street in the
City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...
. It is suggested that he based the tower on
St Helen's in York although the tower more closely resembles that of St Botolph’s Church in
Boston, Lincolnshire
Boston is a market town and inland port in the borough of the same name in the county of Lincolnshire, England. Boston is north of London, north-east of Peterborough, east of Nottingham, south-east of Lincoln, south-southeast of Hul ...
(known as the
Boston Stump
St Botolph's Church is the Anglican parish church of Boston, Lincolnshire, England. It has been referred to as "Boston Stump" since it was constructed. Its tower is tall, and was long used as a landmark for sailors; on a clear day it can be se ...
) and designed an unusual octagonal tower in the gothic style. Shaw died in 1832 before the church was finished and left the remaining work to his son,
John Shaw Jr., whom he had trained at his office in Christ's Hospital.
The Shaws were pioneers in the development of
semi-detached housing
A semi-detached house (often abbreviated to semi) is a single family duplex dwelling house that shares one common wall with the next house. The name distinguishes this style of house from detached houses, with no shared walls, and terraced house ...
in London, breaking away from the common design of terraced housing.
Societies and exhibitions
Shaw was a member of the Architects' Club and a Fellow of the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
, the
Linnean Society of London
The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...
and the
Society of Antiquaries of London
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soci ...
.
Shaw exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1799 and 1834, showing landscapes as well as designs for buildings.
Death
Shaw died suddenly at Ramsgate in July 1832, aged 56. His son
John Shaw Jr., born 1803, took over his posts as architect at Christ's Hospital and Ramsgate, as well as finishing St Dunstan's.
Family
Shaw's most famous son was
John Shaw Jr., born 1803, who also became an architect. Another son was
Thomas Budd Shaw, who became tutor of
English literature to the
grand dukes of Russia in St Petersburg. His daughter, Julia Shaw, married the eminent London architect
Philip Hardwick
Philip Hardwick (15 June 1792 in London – 28 December 1870) was an English architect, particularly associated with railway stations and warehouses in London and elsewhere. Hardwick is probably best known for London's demolished Euston Arch ...
, whom Shaw had helped elect into the Royal Society in 1831. The Shaws and Hardwicks often lived close by each other in
Westminster
Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster.
The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...
and
Holborn
Holborn ( or ) is a district in central London, which covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part ( St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of the Ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London.
The area has its root ...
.
Shaw Senior is buried at St Mary's Church in Bexley. His portrait was painted by
Abraham Daniel (1760–1806) and is part of the National Portrait Gallery collection as well as having a portrait hung at the church of St Dunstan-in-the-West.
References
External links
Works of John Shaw
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, John Sr.
1776 births
1832 deaths
19th-century English architects
People from Bexley
Fellows of the Royal Society
Architects from Kent
Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery
Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London