Archibald Shaw

Archdeacon Archibald Shaw (8 June 1879 – 1956) was a pioneer missionary amongst the Dinka people with the Gordon Memorial Sudan Mission of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in southern Sudan in the first half of the 20th century.

Archibald Shaw was born on 8 June 1879 in Birmingham. His father was Walter Shaw, manufacturer of Machine Tools who was described as "a man of integrity" and a Christian. His mother was Julia Whitehouse of Billesley Hall, Kings Heath, Worcestershire before her marriage. Archibald was one of five children - 2 sons and 3 daughters. Archibald Shaw was a proud Englishman whose conversion to Christ led him to love and serve Africans.

Shaw was educated at Bromsgrove School, Emmanuel College, and Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and ordained by the Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1903 serving his curacy at Walcot, Bath. But it lasted only 2 years for he soon began his distinguished missionary career.

He was accepted for missionary service in the pioneer work of the Gordon Memorial Sudan Mission of the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.) in 1904. C.M.S. was one of the societies invited by Lord Cromer, the British resident in Egypt, to begin work in the Southern region of the Sudan.

The pioneer party of six young missionaries were received by Llewellyn Henry Gwynne (later to become Archdeacon, then Assistant Bishop to the Bishop in Jerusalem and finally Bishop of Egypt and the Sudan.) They were delayed some months in Khartoum making preparations to sail southwards. A large boat was purchased and extensively refitted and enlarged. With two sails it could travel under its own power but was also towed on occasion by a river steamer. Gwynne led the party and Dr Albert Cook came up from Uganda to meet them on arrival at their Dinka landing place.

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