SHAWE, Robert Newton (1784-1855), of Kesgrave Hall, nr. Ipswich, Suffolk

Shawe, a small-scale Suffolk farmer who possessed a ‘weather-beaten face’, had a perfunctory parliamentary career in which his local opponents persistently questioned his loyalty to the agricultural interest.1J. A. Allen, The Shire horse: a history of the breed, the society and the men (1976), 137. He was the great-grandson of Joseph Shawe, a prominent Liverpool merchant who had married the daughter and co-heir of John Wingfield, of Hasleborough Hall, near Derby, a member of an ancient Suffolk family.2J. Burke, A genealogical and heraldic history of the Commoners of Great Britain (1834), i. 672-3. His father, William, of Singleton Lodge in Lancashire, had sat for Preston from 1792 to 1796 as a supporter of the 12^th earl of Derby.3HP Commons, 1790-1820, v. 138. Shawe matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1802, but thereafter eschewed scholarly pursuits, preferring to devote his time to the royal Lancashire militia.4London Gazette, 16 Aug. 1803. Following his marriage in 1811, his father bought him Kesgrave Hall, near Ipswich, where he became a well-known horse breeder and respected judge of Suffolk horses.5Allen, The Shire horse, 137. In 1813 he was commissioned as a captain in the Suffolk militia. He further ingratiated himself into county life as a magistrate and chaired the quarter sessions at Woodbridge, where he officiated with ‘great ability’.6Ipswich Journal, 31 Oct. 1855. When he was mooted as a possible Reform candidate for Suffolk at the 1831 general election, Sir Robert Harland, a leading figure in the local Whig hierarchy, noted that he was ‘a very good fellow but quite a new man in the county’.7Sir Robert Harland to Lord Huntingfield, 16 May 1831, CUL Vanneck Papers, 1/5. His candidature never materialised, but he played an important role in the county’s parliamentary reform movement and at a meeting of Suffolk freeholders in November 1831 he moved a resolution praising the Grey ministry’s reform bill.8HP Commons, 1820-1832, iii. 35; Bury and Norwich Post, 16 Nov. 1831.

At the 1832 general election Shawe, with the support of Harland, offered as a Reformer for the newly-created division of Suffolk East, where the farming interest was particularly vocal. Unsurprisingly, he took great pains to present himself as a champion of the agricultural interest, fervently opposing the abolition of the corn laws and calling for a reform of tithes. Although a committed churchman, he wanted Dissenters to be relieved of paying church rates, but was careful to insist that he was ‘a Reformer, not a Revolutionist’.9Bury and Norwich Post, 19 Dec. 1832. Following a hard fought campaign he was returned in second place by a comfortable margin.10Ibid., 26 Dec. 1832.

Shawe, like his father before him, was a silent Member, though he was a regular presence in the division lobbies, where he often voted against Whig ministers.11R. Gooch, The book of the reformed Parliament: being a synopsis of the votes of the reformed House of Commons (1834), 22-3. He was in minorities for radical motions to abolish army and navy pensions, 14 Feb. 1833, shorten the length of slave apprenticeships, 24 July 1833, abolish impressment in the navy, 4 Mar. 1834, and repeal the Septennial Act, 15 May 1834. With his votes on agricultural issues closely scrutinised by his constituents, he backed Sir William Ingilby’s motion for a reduction in the malt duty, 26 Apr. 1833, only to vote against the same measure four days later, 30 Apr. 1833, for which he was roundly condemned by Suffolk Conservatives.12Ipswich Journal, 27 Dec. 1834, 3 Jan. 1835. Although he later divided for the repeal of the malt tax, 27 Feb. 1834, his earlier volte face was not forgotten by his political opponents in the eastern division.

At the 1835 general election, therefore, Shawe was subject to a stream of attacks in the correspondence pages of the Conservative-supporting Ipswich Journal, purportedly from the local farming community. These ranged from highlighting his inconsistency in the division lobby to the more sinister claim, published in a handbill by ‘Brother Farmers’, that he had abused his position as a magistrate by preventing a proposed county meeting to demonstrate against the malt tax, an accusation which he dismissed as ‘a false and calumnious libel’.13Ibid., 13, 27 Dec. 1834, 3 Jan. 1835. His repeated assertions, however, that he remained a zealous champion of the agricultural interest failed to bolster his support, and following an extremely bitter and personal campaign, he was defeated in third place by just under 300 votes.14Bury and Norwich Post, 14 Jan. 1835; Ipswich Journal, 17 Jan. 1835.

Although his was parliamentary career over, Shawe remained a prominent figure in local Whig circles. At the 1843 Suffolk East by-election he seconded the nomination of the Whig candidate, and attacked Peel for threatening his party with the prospect of Lord John Russell gaining power if they didn’t support him, ‘just exactly as little children run away from an old nurse when she threatens them with the old man in the cupboard’.15Ipswich Journal, 22 Apr. 1843. He continued to chair the Woodbridge quarter sessions, until his retirement in October 1848, and indulge his passion for horse breeding.16Ipswich Journal, 21 Oct. 1848. He also took a particular interest in education, funding the Kesgrave school and the Ipswich mechanics’ institution.17Bury and Norwich Post, 31 Oct. 1855.

Shawe died without issue at Stapleton House, his Gloucestershire residence acquired through marriage, in October 1855, having been in poor health for some years.18Gent. Mag. (1855), ii. 189. He was remembered as ‘a gentleman of inflexible integrity and business habits’.19Ibid.