Charles Shaw

 

SHAW, Charles (1832-1906), minister of religion (Methodist New Connexion), writer, Tunstall.

Charles Shaw, the sixth of eight children of Enoch Shaw, painter and gilder, of Piccadilly Street, Tunstall, by Ann nee Mawdesley, was born between 5 and 11 August 1832. He attended a dame school run by Betty Wedgwood in Tunstall, then began work as a mould runner to an apprentice muffin maker, earning a shilling a week.

When he was eight years old he moved to another factory, possibly Samuel Alcock's, as a handle maker. In 1842 his father lost his job as a result of his participation in a strike (at Davenport's - a severe employer), and the family were forced into Chell workhouse. Shaw later wrote vividly and movingly of his experiences in the workhouse (in his book "When I was a Child), and this and the other events in his early life were used by Arnold Bennett in his novel Clayhanger. Charles Shaw was in the workhouse for about four or five weeks, then his father found a job and Charles was released.

See for information on the 1842 strike & Chartism.

He went to work with a toymaker, George Hood.  His elder brother, Edwin, gave evidence to the inspector, Samuel Scriven, who reported on the employment of children and young persons in the Staffs. Potteries in 1843; Edwin is called Evan Shaw in the report.

The Shaw family attended the Methodist New Connexion chapel in Tunstall. At the age of 18 Charles Shaw joined a Mutual Improvement Society and by 1853 he was on the New Connexion local preachers' plan. He entered the ministry full time and was stationed in Oldham, Sheffield, Mansfield, Huddersfield and Aston during the 1850s. He resigned from the ministry in1861 and entered the family business of his wife, Jane nee Halliwell, at Radcliffe Mill, Grotton, near Oldham.

On his wife's death, before 1870, he became co-owner of the mill. He carried on this business for a number of years, also writing leaders for the radical weekly newspaper, the Oldham Express, under its editor, Alfred Butterworth. In 1868-9 Charles Shaw was prominent in support of the movement to disestablish the Irish Church, invited to become pastor of the Congregational chapel in Nile Street, Burslem. He was ordained on 27 August 1833 and served as pastor for 34 years. In1835 the name of the chapel was changed from Zion to Salem. A new chapel and schools were built in 1837 in Queen Street, and thanks to SBS's fund-raising efforts the debt was almost negligible by 1866. By his wife Mary, whom he had married by about 1834, he had two daughters, Margaret and Mary. In1851 the family was living at Bleak Hill and in 1864 in Waterloo Road. A tablet was erected to his memory in the church. Queen Street church was replaced in 1906 by the present church in Moorland Road.

Sources: Congregational Church, Burslem, 750th Anniversary Booklet 1821-1971; Dir. 1864; VCH viii.