HENRY SHAW. 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH BY THOMAS DIMMOCK. 



Like most of the world's benefactors, Henry Shaw has 

 left scanty material for the biographer. A life prolonged 

 far beyond the ordinary term, and full of active effort al- 

 most from beginning to end, was singularly uneventful — 

 "Keeping the noiseless tenor of its way" from birth to 

 death with little to break, nothing to seriously disturb, its 

 even current. He was a public man only through his labors 

 for the public good. He held no office of any kind, was 

 never a prominent figure in state or municipal affairs, and 

 by choice as well as natural temperament was essentially a 

 private citizen. Even when his benefactions had made him 

 famous abroad as well as at home, he remained the same 

 modest and retiring gentleman ; seeking no honor, caring 

 for no praise — anxious only that his works should live and 

 speak for him when he had gone. And his life was so com- 

 pletely identified and blended with these works, that they 

 will ever be the best and all-sufficient biography of him. 



Henry Shaw was born in Sheffield, England, July 24, 1800. 

 His father, Joseph Shaw, was a native of Leicester, but re- 

 moved to Sheffield at a very early age. The mother, Sarah 

 Hoole, whom he most resembled in disposition, was a native 

 of that city. Henry was the oldest of four children. One 

 son died in infancy, and two daughters are still living : Miss 

 Sarah Shaw, in Rochester, New York, at the age of 86, and 

 Mrs. Caroline Morisse, in St. Louis, at the age of 84. The 

 father was a manufacturer of grates, fire-irons, etc., and 

 had a large establishment in Green Lane, Sheffield, which 

 was afterwards removed to Roscoe Place ; both of which 

 sites have long since disappeared before the advancing tide 



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