| Administrative History | Archibald Downes Shaw (1857-1939), Anglican clergyman and missionary of Clifton, Bristol was accepted by the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in 1876 when he was sent to St Paul's College, Hong Kong as a missionary student. He subsequently attended the Church Missionary College in Islington. In 1881 he was ordained deacon and then priest and served briefly as curate of Doddington, Cambridgeshire. Later the same year he went to East Africa as a CMS missionary first at Kisulitini (1881-87) and then at Frere Town (1887-88); and in 1889 he transferred to Mauritius where he was appointed as chaplain of Vacoas and Black River. In 1890 he was invalided back to England and his connection with the CMS then ceased.
His subsequent career involved many moves: Curate, Littleton, Middlesex, 1890-93; Organising Secretary, Church Army, 1893-1894; Chaplain, Dr Barnardo's Homes, 1894-1898; Vicar, Church of King Charles the Martyr, Tunbridge Wells, 1898-1902; Rector of Kettlestone, Norfolk, 1902-11 ; Vicar, Great Horton, Bradford, 1911-15; and Rector, Scotton, Lincolnshire, 1915-24. He then retired to Cornwall.
Reference: References: Register of missionaries (clerical, lay & female) and native clergy from 1804 to 1904 (Church Missionary Society, 1905), and unpublished additions to this register in the CMS archives
He was married firstly in 1882 to Amy Havergal (niece of Frances Ridley Havergal) who died in Mauritius in 1890 and secondly Alice Montagu in 1893. |
| Custodial History | Presented to the CMS per CMS Regional Administrative Secretary, Nairobi 1962; transferred on permanent loan to the Special Collections Department by the CMS in the 1980s |