Researching John Shaw

A lawyer and politician, Shaw was an alderman on Toronto City Council from 1883 until 1895. He ran for mayor in the 1896 Toronto municipal election but was defeated by the incumbent Robert J. Fleming. As alderman again in 1897, he was elected mayor by council, after Mayor Fleming resigned in August 1897.

During the summer of 1898, the new City Hall on Queen Street was completed and occupied. Ten years earlier construction had started on the city hall designed by Toronto architect E. J. Lennox. Mayor Shaw and his wife were part of the opening ceremonies and were lifted to the top of the clock tower in a wooden workman's lift.

Mayor Shaw believed that the northland's development was very important to Toronto. He presided over the Toronto and Hudson's Bay Railway Commission. The commission was to determine the feasibility of building a railway from Toronto to Hudson Bay. Although the project had many supporters, the line was never built. He was also a member of the Orange Order in Canada.

John Shaw left politics for a time after his mayoral term. He ran for alderman in the 1903 Toronto municipal election but was defeated. He ran for a spot on the Toronto Board of Control in the 1904 Toronto municipal election, the first the body was directly elected, but was again defeated. However, he won a by-election to the Board of Control several months later and was re-elected in 1905 and 1906. In 1908, he was elected to the provincial legislature as the Conservative MLA for Toronto North Seat B then retired from politics in 1911.

Shaw represented Great Britain in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona and the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. He also won a silver medal with England at the 1986 World Cup.

Shaw was born in Taiping, Perak, Malaysia. He is working as a Hockey Coach at Bradfield College, and also coaches at Gerrards Cross Hockey Club. He has previously worked as a coach for Southgate Hockey Club Men's 1st XI and for Oxford University Hockey Club.

Son of John Shaw and Christine née Drew. Received his first education from his mother, later attended a boarding school at Walton, Jamaica. At the age of seventeen he came to New York. He was employed in the drug house on Pine Street. Graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1874.

During his career, he held positions of neurologist to the Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital and consulting neurologist to St. Catherine's, St. John's, Brooklyn, Kings County, Long Island College and Hudson River State Hospital. He was president of the New York Neurological Society (twice).

He was among the first who advocated and applied non-restraint in the insane hospitals of the United States.

Shaw was born in the city of Lincoln (county town of Lincolnshire) and was brought up in the village of Wymeswold, Leicestershire. He was educated at Wymeswold School, Loughborough Grammar School, and Keble College, Oxford. At Oxford University, he was a member of the Oxford University Broadcasting Society. His career was spent as a music and sports broadcaster, especially cricket commentary,or BBC radio stations such as Radio Nottingham and Radio Leicester, as well independent stations such as Radio Trent (later Trent FM). He died after a short illness (leptospirosis), aged 56.

John Shaw has been likened to the broadcaster John Peel (a great influence of his) in his musical eclecticism and breadth of knowledge. A 3-hour tribute radio programme for John Shaw, including members of the band Fairport Convention, was broadcast on 20 January 2014.