Mabel Shaw (missionary)

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Mabel Shaw
Missionary Mabel Shaw in 1915 (cropped).png
Born3 December 1888
Heath Town
Died25 April 1973 (1973-04-26) (aged 84)
Guildford
NationalityBritish
Education St Colm's College
Occupationmissionary
Employer London Missionary Society

Mabel Shaw OBE (1889-1973) was an English missionary and educator in Northern Rhodesia. In her time "she was the most renowned missionary in Africa". [1]

Contents

Life

Shaw was born in 1888 in Wolverhampton. She was the first born child of Elizabeth Anne, born Burgess and Walter Shaw [2] [3] [4] who would have six more children. Her father was a grocer and managed a tea-shop. [2] [3] [4] When she was five she went to live with her grandmother and when she was ten she went to boarding school where she adopted her life long faith in Christianity. [5]

Shaw and Chief Kazembe in 1915 Chief Kazembe with a missionary Mabel Shaw in 1915.png
Shaw and Chief Kazembe in 1915

She was trained over four years as a missionary in Edinburgh at Ann Hunter Small's Women's Missionary Training College. [5]

Shaw joined the London Missionary Society and in 1915 [6] sailed for Africa where she was the first unmarried female missionary to be sent by the London Missionary Society to their Central African mission. [6]

Shaw founded the Mbereshi Girls' School, a mission boarding school at Mbereshi which was the first girls' school in Northern Rhodesia. In the 1931 Birthday Honours she was made an OBE. She served as its Principal until 1940. [7] She left the London Missionary Society in 1941, [6] and in 1942 was appointed to another missionary organisation, the Church Missionary Society, for whom she worked in Uganda until 1947. [1] She retired in 1952. [6]

Her papers are held at the School of Oriental and African Studies. [8]

She died in 1973 in Guildford when she was poor and no longer well known. [5] Her admirers and mourners in Africa raised money to have her remains returned to Zambia, where they were interred in the chapel at Mbereshi Mission. [9]

Works

References

  1. 1 2 Rebecca C. Hughes. "The Legacy of Mabel Shaw". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 37 (2): 105–108.
  2. 1 2 "Census of England and Wales 1891 for Bilston, Staffordshire – Household Identifier 3281936 Line Number 29 Page Number 2 Piece/Folio 244/ 2 Registration Number RG12". FamilySearch, free account required for full access. Bilston, Staffordshire. 1891. Retrieved 29 August 2025.
  3. 1 2 "1901 Census of England and Wales for Wolverhampton Western, Sub-District Wolverhampton Western Registration District Wolverhampton Household Identifier 3417343 Record Type Household Page Number 6 Piece/Folio 107 Schedule Type 36". FamilySearch, free account may be required for access. Wolverhampton, Staffordshire. 1901. Retrieved 29 August 2025.
  4. 1 2 "Census of England and Wales 1911 for Penn, Staffordshire, Upper Penn, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England Sub-District Wombourn Sub-District Number 3 Enumeration District 9 Registration District Wolverhampton District Number 369 Document Type 3 Page Number 1 Source Page Type 6 Piece/Folio 185 Registration Number RG14 Schedule Type 93". FamilySearch, free account may be required to view. Upper Penn, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire. 1911.
  5. 1 2 3 "Shaw, Mabel (1888–1973), missionary and educationist" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/70026. ISBN   978-0-19-861412-8 . Retrieved 2021-01-22.(Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  6. 1 2 3 4 "SOAS Archives, metadata - MS 380319 Papers of Mabel Shaw, 1915–1973". Archives of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). 2025. Retrieved 2 August 2025.
  7. ↑ Sean Morrow (1986). ""No girl leaves the school unmarried": Mabel Shaw and the education of girls at Mbereshi, Northern Rhodesia, 1915-1940". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 19 (4): 601–635. doi:10.2307/219137. JSTOR   219137.
  8. ↑ Papers of Mabel Shaw. Accessed 11 January 2021.
  9. ↑ "Mable Shaw: Her story, her legacy – Zambia Daily Mail". www.daily-mail.co.zm. Retrieved 2021-01-22.
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