William Shaw (Irish politician)

For other people named William Shaw, seeWilliam Shaw (disambiguation).

William Shaw(4 May 1823 – 19 September 1895) was anIrishProtestant nationalistpolitician. He was aMember of Parliament(MP) in theHouse of Commonsof theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Irelandand one of the founders of theIrish home rulemovement.

Biography

Born inMoy, County Tyrone,Shaw was connected with theYoung Irelandmovement, and studied atTrinity College Dublinwithout taking a degree. He then studied theology atHighbury CollegeinMiddlesex.He served as a Minister at an independent church inCorkfrom 1846 to 1850, then married and left his post to move into business.

Shaw stood as aLiberal Partycandidate inBandon,at the 1865 by-election and subsequentgeneral election,but was defeated on both occasions. He stood in the same seat at the1868 general election,and was elected as anindependent Liberal.While generally supportive ofWilliam Ewart Gladstone,he became active in the newHome Government Association,and in 1873, he presided over the convention held to found its successor, theHome Rule League.

At the1874 general election,Shaw was elected unopposed forCounty Cork,and withMitchell Henry,often deputised for Home Rule Party leaderIsaac Butt.He remained loyal to Butt, and when Butt died in 1879, Shaw was selected as the new party chairman.

Shaw held his seat at the1880 general election,but lost an election for the party chairmanship, toCharles Stewart Parnell.Parnell distanced the Home Rule League from the Liberal Party, but Shaw continued to sit on the Liberal benches in the House of Commons, and was appointed to theBessborough Commissionto examine Irish land tenure. Shaw opposed theIrish Land League,formally left the Irish party group in early 1881, and resigned from the moribund Home Rule League in December.

Shaw devoted increasing amounts of his time to his chairmanship of theMunster Bank,and did not stand for Parliament at the1885 general election.Later in the year, the Munster Bank collapsed, and Shaw was declared personally bankrupt. He moved to London and worked with various newspapers in the last years of his life.

Shaw died on 19 September 1895 inEnniskerry,County Wicklow.He died from Cardiac Failure aged 72.

External links

• Hansard1803–2005:contributions in Parliament by William Shaw