Henry Shaw (botanist)
| Henry Shaw | |
|---|---|
Henry Shaw
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| Born |
July 24, 1800 Sheffield, England |
| Died | August 25, 1889 (aged 89) St. Louis, Missouri |
| Nationality | British, American (naturalized in 1843) |
| Occupation | Businessman, Philanthropist |
| Known for | Founding the Missouri Botanical Garden |
Henry Shaw (July 24, 1800 in Sheffield, England – August 25, 1889 in St. Louis, Missouri) was a philanthropist and is best known as the founder of the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Shaw was born on July 24, 1800 in Sheffield, England, which had been a center of iron and steel manufacturing for centuries. Henry’s father, Joseph Shaw, had moved to Sheffield as a young man to open his own iron factory, along with a partner. The firm manufactured grates, fire irons and so forth. Henry was the oldest of four children in the family. He had two sisters, Sarah and Caroline, and a brother who died in infancy. Shaw received his primary school education in the village of Thone near his home in Sheffield. When he was about ten or eleven, however, he was transferred to the Mill Hill School near London. He remained at this boarding school for about six years, before returning home to Sheffield in 1816 or 1817.
Shaw was forced to return to Sheffield, it seems, because of his father’s financial difficulties. While he had been away at school, his father’s business had come upon hard times. The family could no longer afford the luxury of sending young Henry to the expensive school with other children of the upper classes. Nevertheless, Shaw had gained in his time at Mill Hill School the basic education of an English gentleman. He had studied the classics, learned some Latin and Greek, and studied French. He also studied mathematics and was introduced to the sciences. More importantly, however, he acquired the attitudes and outlook of an English gentleman, traits that he would continue to have even after decades of life in the United States.
On his return to Sheffield, Henry began to assist his father with the business. Searching for new markets, the elder Shaw turned his sights on the vast markets of the Americas. Iron and steel manufacturing in the former colonies was not as advanced as in England, and indeed, Sheffield steel products were some of the finest in the world. In 1818, Henry accompanied his father on his first trip across the Atlantic Ocean where the pair did business in Quebec, Canada. Young Henry must have impressed his father with his business acumen, because the next year he was sent to New Orleans alone on business, even though he was still a teenager.
A shipment of goods to New Orleans had been lost or misplaced and Henry was sent to find the shipment. Although he recovered the goods, he could not find a buyer in New Orleans. With the business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit that was to mark his adult life, Shaw was determined to find a market for the goods in the interior of the country. Vast territories of the American Midwest had been opened up in the previous decade by the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States. In about 1817, New Orleans had become the gateway to this vast interior markets when the first steam powered paddlewheel boat made its way up the Mississippi River from the port of New Orleans.
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Wikipedia