# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Shaw, James Johnston

​SHAW, JAMES JOHNSTON (1845–1910), county court judge, born at Kirkcubbin, co. Down, on 4 Jan. 1845, was second son of seven children of John Maxwell Shaw (d. 1852), a merchant and farmer at Kirkcubbin, lay his wife Anne, daughter of Adam Johnston. Shaw was first taught in a local national school, and later by James Rowan, presbyterian minister of Kirkcubbin. In 1858 he was sent to the Belfast Academy, where he became a favourite pupil of the principal. Rev. Reuben John Bryce, LL.D. (uncle of Mr. James Bryce). In 1861 he entered Queen's College, Belfast, gaining the highest entrance scholarship in classics, the first of many honours. Diverging to the study of mental science and political economy, he graduated B.A. in 1865 and M.A. in 1866 in the Queen's University of Ireland with first-class honours in those subjects. In 1882 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from his university.
After studying theology in the general assembly's college, Belfast, and at the University of Edinburgh, he was licensed to preach in 1869 by the presbytery of Ards, and was appointed in the same year by the general assembly professor of metaphysics and ethics in Magee College, Londonderry. In 1878 he resigned this chair and was called to the Irish bar, where he rapidly attained success. Meanwhile in 1876 he was elected Whately professor of political economy in Trinity College, Dublin. Several papers on economic subjects which he read before the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, the British Association, the Social Science Congress, and elsewhere, were published and attracted attention. He became president of the Statistical Society in 1901. In 1886 he was made a member of the senate of the Royal University of Ireland, and in 1891 a commissioner of national education. In the last year, however, he became county court judge of Kerry. The work of the new office proved congenial and afforded leisure to apply to other work. In 1902 he joined the council of trustees of the National Library of Ireland, and in 1908 was chairman of a viceregal commission of inquiry into the mysterious disappearance of the crown jewels from Dublin castle. When the Queen's University of Belfast was founded by royal charter in 1908 he was appointed by the crown chairman of the commission charged with the framing of the statutes, and the duties of this office he discharged with marked ability. He was also a member of the governing body of the University, and in 1909 pro-chancellor in succession to Sir Donald Currie [q. v. Suppl. II]. In 1909 he was created recorder of Belfast, and county court judge of Antrim. A singularly clear thinker and writer, and a high-principled administrator, Shaw died in Dublin on 27 April 1910, and was buried in the Mount Jerome cemetery there. In 1911 his portrait by Sydney Rowley was placed in the hall of the Queen's University of Belfast, together with a memorial brass; a Shaw prize in economics was also founded in his memory.
Shaw married in 1870 Mary Elizabeth (d. 1908), daughter of William Maxwell of Ballyherley, co. Down, by whom he had one daughter, Margaret (who married Robert H. Woods, president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, 1910-11), and two sons.
Shaw translated the ’Enchiridion' in 1873, for an edition of the works of Augustine edited by Dr. Marcus Dods. After his death his daughter, Mrs. Woods, collected and edited, with a biographical sketch, a number of his papers on economic and other subjects under the title 'Occasional Papers' (Dublin, 1910).
[Personal knowledge; address by Right Hon. Christopher Palles at unveiling of memorial tablet in Belfast University, 1911; biographical sketch by Mrs. Woods, ut supra.]
T. H.