Geoffrey Shaw (composer)

Geoffrey Turton Shaw (14 November 1879 – 14 April 1943) was an English composer and musician specializing in Anglican church music. After Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar, he became a schoolmaster, then a schools inspector, while producing a stream of compositions, arrangements, and published collections of music. He was awarded the Lambeth degree of Doctor of Music.

Shaw worked with his brother Martin Shaw, also a composer, while his son Sebastian was a Shakespearean actor who is remembered for the Star Wars role of Anakin Skywalker.

Born at Clapham, South London, in 1879, Shaw was the son of James Fallas Shaw, a composer of church music and organist of Hampstead, and the younger brother of the composer Martin Shaw (1875–1958). Geoffrey Shaw became a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral under Sir George Martin and was then educated at Derby School and Caius College, Cambridge. At Caius, he was an organ scholar, studied with Sir Charles Stanford and Charles Wood, and graduated BA in 1901 and MusB in 1902.