Shaw was Managing Director and Chairman of John Shaw & Sons Ltd. of Wolverhampton. He was a Member of Wolverhampton Town Council, a Captain in the 3rd Volunteer Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment[3] and was Liberal MP for Stafford from 1892 to December 1910.[4]
Shaw married at St Mark's Chapel, North Audley Street, Piccadilly, on 17 January 1900, Emily White Bursill, daughter of Henry Bursill, of Hampstead.[5] The couple lived at Charters at Sunningdale in Berkshire, with their two daughters.[1]