Mabel Shaw (missionary)

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]

Mabel Shaw
Born3 December 1888
Died25 April 1973 (1973-04-26) (aged 84)
NationalityBritish
EducationSt Colm's College
Occupationmissionary
EmployerLondon Missionary Society

Life

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Shaw was born in 1889 in Wolverhampton. She was the first born child of Elizabeth Anne, born Purchase and Matthew Shaw who would have four more children. Her father managed a tea-shop. 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.[2]

 
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.[2]

Shaw founded the Mbereshi Girls' School, a mission boarding school at Mbereshi which was the first girls' school in Northern Rhodesia. She served as its Principal until 1940.[3]

Her papers are held at the School of Oriental and African Studies.[4]

She died in 1972 in Guildford when she was poor and no longer well known.[2] Her admirers and mourners in Africa raised money to have her remains returned to Zambia.[5]

Works

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  • Children of the Chief. LMS Gift Book for 1921.
  • Dawn in Africa: Stories of Girl Life. Edinburgh House Press, 1927.
  • God's Candlelights: An Educational Venture in Northern Rhodesia. Edinburgh House Press, 1932.
  • A Treasure of Darkness: An Idyll of African Child Life. Longmans, 1936.

References

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  1. ^ Rebecca C. Hughes. "The Legacy of Mabel Shaw". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 37 (2): 105–108.
  2. ^ a b c "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 or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ Papers of Mabel Shaw. Accessed 11 January 2021.
  5. ^ "Mable Shaw: Her story, her legacy – Zambia Daily Mail". www.daily-mail.co.zm. Retrieved 2021-01-22.