The Shaw Family

Elizabeth (_____) Shaw

Married: Gabriel Shaw

Children: Sources:

Elizabeth (Shaw) King

Father: Gabriel Shaw

Mother: Elizabeth (_____) Shaw

Married: John King in 1730.
Elizabeth's marriage settlement concerned a messuage called "Crispes", in Frinton.
20 January 1730
Marriage Settlement
GABRIAL SHAW, of Kirby, esq. and Elizabeth his wife
(2) John King, of Thorp, gentleman and Elizabeth his wife. (3) Robert Price, of Colchester, esq. on marriage of John King and Elizabeth only daughter of Gabriel Shaw
Messuage called 'Crispes', etc., Frinton

Crips, variously estimated at 16, 18 and 20 acres, had been held in the Shaw familt since 1710 and was sold by Shaw King in 1798. The day before this marriage settlement was signed, a lease agreement for the property was signed by Gabriel Shaw, of Kirby, from Robert Price, of Colchester.

Children: Sources:

Gabriel Shaw

Father: Jeremy Shaw

Mother: Sarah (Barbar) Shaw

Married: Elizabeth _____

Children: Occupation: J.P. for Essex.

Notes: Gabriel owned the estate Mereland in Kirby le Soken, Essex, which he inherited from his grandfather, Sir John Shaw.

Sources:

Jeremy Shaw

Birth: 10 January 1665/6 (OS/NS), in Colchester St Leonard, Essex, England

Father: John Shaw

Mother: Thamar (Lewes) Shaw

Education: Royal Grammar School of Colchester. Jeremy was admitted on 9 January 1671/2 (OS/NS).

Married (1st): Sarah Barbar

Children: Married (2nd): Anne (Hamond) Nicholson. Anne was the daughter of Mr. Hamond of Oxfordshire and widow of John Nicholson

Children: Occupation: J.P. for Essex

Notes: Jeremy was of Kirby le Soken, Essex. In 1710 he bought the freehold Crisps, in Frinton, Essex, which is estimated at 16 to 20 acres, from Joseph Thurston, a Colchester woolen-draper.

Sources:

Jeremy Shaw

Father: Jeremy Shaw

Mother: Anne (Hamond, Nicholson) Shaw

Notes: Jeremy died without children

Sources:

John Shaw

Married: Mary Lufkin

Children: Occupation: Politician
John Shaw, a royalist, was elected mayor of Colchester in 1647, in the first direct election for the position, but his election was annulled under pressure from a troop of parliamentarian horse, and the following year, after the Siege of Colchester, John, along with Robert Buxton and Thomas Laurence, were removed as aldermen. In 1660, he was restored to his position as alderman, while his son, also John Shaw, became recorder.

Sources:

John Shaw

Title: Sir John Shaw

Birth: 1616/7

Father: John Shaw

Mother: Mary (Lufkin) Shaw

Married: Thamar Lewes in May 1643

Description of the marriage settlement held at Essex Record office D/DR T28/2:
Marriage settlement
(i) John Shaw, senior of Colchester, gentleman; (ii) Thomas Talcott of Colchester, gentleman and William Blomefeild, senior of Little Stoneham, Suffolk, gent.; (iii) John Shaw, junior of Lincoln's Inn, Middlesex, gentleman (son and heir of John Shaw, senior) and Thamar Lewes (daughter and heir of Samuel Lewes late of Raydon, Suffolk), gentleman, deceased.

Farm, lands, tenements and marshes called Goldanger alias Faltie alias Pawtie (containing 170a.) in occupation of Thomas Huggins and William Yellopp; messuage and 3 crofts of land called Pryers; salt marsh called Pryers Marsh alias the Outmarsh (20a.); croft called Edencroft (3a.) in occupation of John Reade; crofts called Ravens Croft (14a.); salt marsh called Ravens Marsh with 2 parcels of land (10a.) in occupation of William Garrard; common pasture for 25 sheep a year in Stockwell marshes and the salt marshes; messuage in north part of Pitcroft Lane and a croft of land called Cobbs Croft (2 and a half acres) in occupation of John Carlett with common pasture for 30 sheep a year in the Common Marsh in Goldhanger; messuage called Hunts and a croft of land (1 and a half acres) on west of Hunts in occupation of Margaret Knight widow, all in Goldhanger and Great and Little Totham. Messuage and crofts of land called Shottesland and 2 meadows (10a.) adjoining in occupation of Thomas Lawrence; field called Brettland (5a.); parcel of meadow called Bennettes alias Lamberts near Symines Brome; crofts of land called Green croft and Hobbs Loyte, in occupation of [blank] Hutt; messuage called Nuges in occupation of Thomas Huggins; land called Cokes alias Cookes (9a.); tenement and 'Wareland' called Helders alias Holders (5a.), two parcels of land, one called Parsonsmoore and the other Holders Meade (2 and a half acres), parcel of land called Wheat Croft alias Wettfeild (6a.) adjacent to Holders, meadow at Garnisheade called Bowsers Hope (1a.), meadow called Bridgeleys Mead alias Bridge Meade (2a.), parcel of land called Bedleys Leigh, all in occupation of [blank] Hutt, all in Langford and Ulting. Messuage and garden in occupation of John Shaw, senior in All Saints, Colchester; messuage and gate called the Burgate in occupation of Robert Gurney, maltster, 2 tenements in Southgate Street in occupation of Leonard Crispe and Christopher Barnard, in St. Botolph, Colchester. Messuage and land (16a.) called Teles, croft of land called Hubbards Croft (2a.) in occupation of [blank] Coleman in Great Totham. Messuages and lands called Sturmares alias Sturmures and Paynes in occupation of [blank] Berrisford, crofts of land called Spice Crabtrees, formerly Wellousland and Under Houton in occupation of Thomas Barker, all in Witham. Customary tenement and land (30a.) called Parmes, surrendered by John Shaw, senior, copyhold of the manor of LittleTotham with Goldhanger.

Property in Goldhanger, Little Totham, Langford and Ulting to the use of John Shaw junior and, after his death, to Thamar Lewes for life; the remainder to their heirs or, in default of issue, to the heirs of John Shaw, senior
Property in All Saints, and St. Botolph, Colchester, and Witham to the use of John Shaw, junior for life with remainder to heirs of John Shaw, senior

Children: Occupation: Lawyer and politician.
John was M.P. for Colchester in 1659, 1660 and 1661. In 1660 became Recorder of Colchester, an important legal position in the borough government. John was knighted at Whitehall on 24 October 1661 (Le Neve's pedigrees of the knights made by King Charles II., King James II., King William III. and Queen Mary, King William alone, and Queen Anne p146 (Peter Le Neve, 1873)). John is noted to have been a controlling influence in the Restoration corporation, and a supporter of the established church. Opposition to his party grew during the 1670s. 'Scandalous' verses against Shaw and alderman William Moore circulated in 1673, and at the elections of 1676 the opposition, led by the aldermen Ralph Creffield, Nathaniel Laurence, and Thomas Green, all nonconformist sympathizers, succeeded in having Shaw removed as recorder. John began legal action against the town, claiming arrears for wages due to him both as a member of parliament and as recorder which resulted in Colchester paying him £356 compensation before he resigned the office of recorder to the Duke of Albemarle on 12 November 1677. John was appointed Serjeant-at-law on 11 October 1677 (A political index to the histories of Great Britain and Ireland Vol 1 p437 (1788)) and King's Serjeant on 22 November 1683 (ibid. p438). Turbulent politics continued in the town with opponents being accused of being covert dissenters and new rules being introduced that town officers had to be communicants of the Church of England. In 1688, the Privy Council stepped in and replaced the mayor and much of the council, including the recorder who was replaced, in May 1688, by Sir John Shaw.

A political opponent of John's the Rev. E. Hickeringill descibes John's political choices with some venom in the Tanner MSS printed in The history and antiquities of Colchester castle p122 (1882):
This Proteus was a Councellor before he was a Captayne against Charles I, then a Committee-man, &c. And in all these nauseous vicissitudes the chamelion was of the colour that was nearest him, being sometime for the King, then for the Rump, then for Oliver, then for Queen Dick then for the Committee of slavery and the keepers of the liberties of England, and then for the King again at last.

Crest of Sir John Shaw
Crest of Sir John Shaw, of Colchester
image from myfamilysilver.com citing Fairbairn's Book of Crests, 1905 ed
Arms:
Arms: Or, a chevron wavy between 3 eagles displayed sable; on an escutcheon of pretence
Crest: A hind's head proper, transfixed by an arrow gules barbed argent.

Death: 1690, aged 73

Buried: The chancel at Holy Trinity Church, Colchester, Essex, England
The history and description of Colchester Vol 2 p24 (1803):
    On grave stones in the chancel.
M. S. Johannes Shaw Miles pro Rege Serviens ad legem, villae Colcestriae a Memoria, Ubi ut communi Utilitati et Paci publicae serviatur, curavit nemo inter successores felicius, Dum publicis Regni Comitiis agens (quo officia diu est sunctus) Regis & Regni Com'odum indivisum habuit. Tandem, valedicto prius mundo, cum ętatem hominis pertransissit animam Deo, unde venit, tradidit. Quicquid erat mortale sub hoc marmore deponitur. Fide Christiana reviviscere immortale et aeternum. Anno aetatis 73, et salutis 1690.

"Miles" in this epitaph translates as Knight.

The next two gravestones listed in The history and description of Colchester provide some difficulty reconciling with the first one of John Shaw above. They read:
2. Here lyeth the body of the lady Thamar Shaw, wife to sir John Shaw knight, serjeant at law, who died Jan. 13, Anno Dmi 1681.
3 Here lyeth the body of sir John Shaw knight, serjernt at law, who dyed Jan. 13, Anno Domi 1681.

Philip Morant in The history and antiquities of the most ancient town and borough of Colchester (1748) reprinted by J. Fenno in 1789 p143 attempts to solve this conundrum by concoting a second Sir John Shaw, also a knight and also a serjeant-at-law, and inserting him as the son on the first Sir John Shaw and the father of John Shaw Esq. who married Anne Broom, and having him born in 1648 and dying in 1681. Morant's explanation does not work not just because it is extremely unlikely that the young son got the same awards as his father, but also we know that John Shaw Esq. married Anne Broom in 1677 aged about 28 (London marriage licenses 1521-1869 p1212). Clearly John Shaw Esq. is directly the son of the first (and actually only) Sir John Shaw, serjeant-at-law, and Morant's extra generation is incorrect.

My attempt to explain these two gravestones, is that the first obviously refers to Thamar Lewis who married Sir John Shaw, and that she died on 13 January 1681. i.e. the implied parenthesis should read "Here lyeth the body of the lady Thamar Shaw, (wife to sir John Shaw knight, serjeant at law), who died Jan. 13, Anno Dmi 1681." rather than "Here lyeth the body of the lady Thamar Shaw, (wife to sir John Shaw knight, serjeant at law, who died Jan. 13, Anno Dmi 1681.").

The next gravestone is much more troublesome, and I believe that it is simply an error, either in the inscription or in the transciption of the inscription (I have not had the opportunity to examine the stones myself). Quite possibly there is a John Shaw buried there, perhaps Sir John's father, and the information on Thamar's stone was inadvertantly copied. It's not a great explanation, I know, and I am very willing to listen to a better one. We know that Sir John Shaw, serjeant-at-law, lived on past 1681 - in 1683 he was promoted to King's Serjeant, and in 1688 he was re-elected as recorder of Colchester.

Notes:
John lived on an estate known as Shaw's, onwhich the manor house Holly Trees was later built. He also owned the estate Mereland in Kirby le Soken, Essex.
Colchester worthies. a biographical index of Colchester p47 (Benham, Charles E.)
SHAWE, SIR JOHN. A prominent royalist during Cromwell's Government. Lived in the parish of  All Saints. He was brought up to the law, and at the Restoration was made Recorder of Colchester, a post which he resigned Nov. 12, 1677. He was three times M.P. for the town, and died 1690, aged 73. Buried in Trinity Church.

The life of the right honourable Francis North, Baron of Guilford p88 (Roger North, 1819):
But once in the circuit, being invited with the rest of the counsel, to dine at Colchester with the recorder Sir John Shaw, who was well known to be one of the greatest kill-cows at drinking in the nation; he with the rest of his brethren, by methods too well known, got very drunk.

Sources:
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