Appendix E: Biographies

Shaw and Wardrop

While the guest of Eliza (see Image 40) and John Winstanley in 1829–1830, young Anna McNeill was introduced by their friend, Frances (Morton) Stevenson, to Georgina (Wardrop) Shaw (bap. Edinburgh 22 July 1792 – Clapham, Surrey 7 March 1875; see Image 486),1 the widowed daughter of William (b. Edinburgh 17 March 1769; bap. South Leith, Edinburgh 31 March 1769; d. Edinburgh 24 November 1802) and Catherine (Fraser) Wardrop (1768 – Clapham 4 March 1850; see Image 488).2 Georgina (Wardrop) Shaw’s father had been secretary to the Bank of Scotland between 1791 and 1802,3 and it is likely that he thus became acquainted with Frances (Morton) Stevenson’s husband, Walter (see Stevenson and Smith in this Appendix). The Wardrop family in general were private bankers. On 23 August 1814, Georgina Wardrop married John Shaw (1792 – buried 16 October 1823; see Image 487),4 a gentleman of the parish of Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire. They lived in Great Marlow and became the parents of five children, all of whom survived into adulthood: John Shaw (bap. 14 August 1815), William Wardrop Shaw (bap. 13 July 1820 – 9 September 1895), Catherine Maccallum Shaw (bap. 13 July 1820 – Clapham Park 18 March 1888), Georgina Shaw (bap. 25 October 1821 – Clapham Park 10 May 1902), and Alexander Wardrop Shaw (bap. 19 June 1823 – 1 August 1858).5 Four months after the christening of his fifth child, John Shaw, surgeon and apothecary, thirty-one years of age, died. His will, drawn up on 8 August 1823, indicates only that he bequeathed all his “Estates and Effects” to his wife.6 The entry for him in the registers of death duties contains a space where his death should have been entered but was not, and the “Sworn Under” figure in the entry is £1,500.7

A widow with five children, the eldest eight years old, Georgina Shaw set about opening a school to support her family. Her brother, Alexander Wardrop (b. Falkirk 5 December 1794; bap. Edinburgh, St. Cuthberts 14 November 1795; d. Calcutta 6 June 1832), helped her to get pupils from among the children of his colleagues.8 Although directory information about her career as a schoolmistress is sporadic and confusing, Pigot’s London Directory 1832-3-49 lists a preparatory boarding and day school for boys under her name at Cadogan Terrace, Sloane Street. Pigot’s London Directory 1839 lists under “Academies – Gent.’s” an “E. Shaw at 2 Francis Street, Nemington butts” and under “Academies – Ladies” a “Mrs. & Miss Shaw at 17 Gloucester Place, Kentish Town.” Pigot’s Directory of Kent 1839 lists a “Mr G.H. Shaw on High Street.” This latter school is also listed in the 1841 Census, with eleven male pupils between the ages of nine and fifteen recorded.10 The Post Office London Directories list a Miss Catherine Shaw as having a seminary at 43 Bedford Place, Kensington, from 1846 to 1848. The 1851 Census for Georgina Shaw’s household in Loats Road, Clapham, shows that it was a school for girls, of which she was “school mistress,” while her two unmarried daughters were teachers. Twenty pupils were recorded.11 Her mother, Catherine (Fraser) Wardrop, who lived with her, died at her home.12 She left five-eighths of her property to her daughter.13 The 1871 Census indicates that Georgina Shaw was a “surgeon’s widow,” still living together with her unmarried daughters; there is no reference to a school.14

Her son, William Wardrop Shaw, was an East India merchant and spent some time in Singapore. There he married Emily Caroline Crane (bap. 20 July 1832 – Holbrook, Ipswich 10 November 1919), spinster, aged twenty, daughter of Thomas Owen, on 8 October 1852.15 They are listed in the 1861 through 1891 censuses: in 1861 in the Parish of Mother of St. Margaret, Lee, Kent, at which time five children are recorded (Charles, Henry, Emily, Alice, and William); and in 1871, 1881, and 1891 at Blackheath Park, Civil Parish of Charlton, Ecclesiastical Parish of St. Luke’s, and at Blackheath Park, “The Hall,” Civil Parish of Charlton, Ecclesiastical Parish of St. Michael.16 In 1871, four children were recorded, in 1891 two. William Wardrop Shaw’s personal estate at his death amounted to about £182,000.

As William Wardrop Shaw was not married until 1852, he is not the widowed son referred to in Anna Whistler’s diaries as returning home with his two motherless babes. Nor can it be John Shaw, whose second wife, Elizabeth (1815–1868), whom he married in 1841, was still alive. It was Alexander Wardrop Shaw who was the widower coming home to his mother with his two orphaned babies.17 It has not been possible to find further information about him.

Catherine Maccallum Shaw and her sister, Georgina Shaw, are listed in the 1881 Census as having an adopted child, six years old, born at Islington, Middlesex, named Alice Chapman.18 This is curious, because of the child’s possible connection with Dr. Edward Chapman (see Chapman in this Appendix), whose address in the Medical Register in 1872 was given as the Islington Workhouse, where presumably he was the medical officer. At her death, Catherine Maccallum Shaw’s personal estate was about £1,100; that of her sister, Georgina Shaw, was about £4,000. In her trips to England in the years 1843 to 1848, Anna Whistler (see Images 1–5) recorded seeing Georgina Shaw only in 1848.

Notes