Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Shaw, John (1614-1689)
SHAW, JOHN (1614–1689), divine, son of a minister, was born at Bedlington, Durham, in 1614, and matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford, on 21 Nov. 1628, but removed to Brasenose on 2 April 1629. On graduating B.A., 24 March 1631–2, he returned to the north, and was ordained by the bishop of Durham. He seems to have been vicar of Alnham, Northumberland, from 1636, and in 1645 was presented to Whalton rectory in the same county, but was never admitted because of his strong royalist views. Probably he went abroad for a time; but he afterwards received the rectory of Bolton in Craven, which Wood says ‘he was permitted to keep because it was only worth 50l. a year.’ Walker says he was imprisoned for four years during the Commonwealth. After the Restoration, Shaw was admitted to Whalton by John Cosin [q. v.], the new bishop of Durham, and on 27 Aug. 1662 he was appointed lecturer at St. John's Church, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and afternoon lecturer at All Saints' in the same town. The corporation of Newcastle printed some of his writings against popery at their own expense. Shaw died at Newcastle on 22 May 1689. He was buried in St. John's Church.
Shaw's works, all of them rare, are:
- ‘The Portraictvre of the Primitive Saints in their Actings and Sufferings, according to St. Paul's Canon,’ Newcastle, 1652, 4to.
- ‘The Catalogue of the Hebrew Saincts canonized by St. Paul further explained and applied,’ Newcastle, 1659, 4to.
- ‘Origo Protestantium, or an Answer to a Popish manuscript,’ by ‘N.N.’ (Bodleian Catalogue), London, 1677, 4to.
- ‘No Reformation of the Established Reformation,’ London, 1685, 8vo.
[Works above named; Mackenzie's Hist. of Newcastle, i. 347, 355; Brand's Hist. of Newcastle, i. 113, 118, 119, 387; Walker's Sufferings. ii. 368; Whitaker's Hist. of Craven, ed. Morant. p. 131; Foster's Alumni, 1500–1714; Kennett's Register, pp. 544, 916; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. iv. 256, and Fasti, i. 459; Mackenzie's View of Northumberland. p. 392.]