[PW] Re: Dawin, Brooke and Shaw

[Graeme Rymill]

A candidate for the lion eating Dr Shaw is;

"Shaw, Thomas (1694-1751), traveller, son of Gabriel Shaw, shearman-dyer of Kendal, Westmorland, and his wife, who was probably called Agnes, was born on 4 June 1694 at Kendal and baptized there on 18 June. Having attended Kendal grammar school, he matriculated from Queen's College, Oxford, on 5 December 1711, graduating BA in 1716 and MA on 16 January 1720. Later that year he was appointed chaplain to the English factory at Algiers at a salary of £100 per annum. During his time there he travelled widely, to Egypt, Sinai, Cyprus, and the Holy Land in 1721-2 and to Tunis and Carthage in 1727, as well as making various excursions into the interior of Barbary (Algiers, Tripoli, and Morocco). In Barbary travel was comparatively safe, but in 'Aqabah he was stripped naked by robbers, and while travelling with 6000 pilgrims to Jerusalem he was seized and held to ransom. However, with 'a body capable of bearing the fatigues of travelling united to a mind rich in most kinds of human learning' (European Magazine, 19, 1791, 83), in all these regions he made careful observations of the geography, natural history, customs, and antiquities. In 1733, having married Joanna, the widow of his friend and benefactor, Edward Holden, consul at Algiers, Shaw returned to England. Elected a fellow of Queen's in 1727, he became doctor of divinity in 1734 and was presented to the vicarage of Godshill, Isle of Wight. He was also elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 13 June 1734, having contributed to their Philosophical Transactions of 1729, through Sir Hans Sloane, with 'A geographical description of the kingdom of Tunis'.

Four years later Shaw published Travels, or, Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant (1738), which included maps, plates, lists of animals, plants (about 640 species), fossils, coins, and inscriptions, and a copious index. He had engaged the botanist Johann Jakob Dillenius to catalogue his flora. Dedicated to George II, the book also acknowledged the generous patronage of Queen Caroline. The bibliophile Thomas Dibdin called the work 'a safe inmate' of a well-chosen collection and exhorted 'Fly, fly, to secure it' (Library Companion, 1824, 2.48). It was especially admired for the illustrations of natural history, of classical authors, and of the scriptures. Gibbon honourably excepts him from the crowd of 'blind' travellers (E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 24), while his scrupulous veracity was vindicated by James Bruce and later African explorers."

{Again an extract taken from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

A good candidate for the bear eating Brooke is:

"Broke [Brooke], Sir Arthur de Capell [formerly Arthur Supple], second baronet (1791-1858), geographer, was born in Bolton Street, Mayfair, Westminster, on 22 October 1791. His family was originally from Cheshire. He was the elder son of Sir Richard de Capell Brooke (1758-1829) and Mary (d. 1846), only child and heir of Major-General Richard Worge; they also had four daughters. Arthur's father was the first baronet and in 1797 had adopted the name of Brooke in accordance with his uncle's will and in addition changed his first surname from Supple to de Capell by royal licence. Arthur was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated BA on 20 May 1813 and MA on 5 June 1816. On 27 November 1829 he succeeded his father in the title and estates. He used the older spelling of his family name, Broke. He joined the army, rising to the rank of major in 1846. Much of his early life was spent in foreign travel, especially in Scandinavia. In 1823 he published Travels through Sweden, Norway and Finmark to the North Pole ... in 1820 which was followed by A Winter in Lapland and Sweden (1827). Winter sketches in Lapland ... intended to exhibit a complete view of the mode of travelling with reindeer (1827) contained much entertaining incident, topographical and ethnographical detail, splendid illustrations, and a fine map. However, Broke's intention of describing the Swedish peasantry, which might have been of more lasting value, was not realized. It is for his Scandinavian works that he is chiefly remembered, but he also published a minor work Sketches in Spain and Morocco (1837).

Broke was an original member of the Travellers' Club, but in 1827, feeling strongly that many of the newly elected members had little interest in foreign travel, he founded the Raleigh Club, of which he was for many years president. It attracted many of the most distinguished travellers and geographers of the day and had both geographical and convivial aims. In 1830 some members, with Broke's apparent approval, set up a Geographical Society, which later became the Royal Geographical Society. In 1854 the Raleigh Club became the Geographical Club which was very closely connected to the Royal Geographical Society. Broke was thus intimately connected with the establishment and success of the main geographical institutions in the country. He was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and of the Royal Society. In his later years he took an active interest in temperance and in various charitable and religious causes. He died at Oakley Hall, Great Oakley, Northamptonshire, on 6 December 1858. He and Elizabeth Zilpah, widow of J. J. Eyre of Endcliffe, near Sheffield, had married on 18 December 1851, but had had no children, so Broke was succeeded by his brother William. Sir Roderick Murchison described him as 'of retiring and unostentatious habits', with no desire to participate in public life, yet with 'all the spirit of an adventurous traveller' (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 1859). He was in fact deputy lieutenant and later sheriff of his home county of Northamptonshire, but seems to have been equally or more at ease in a Finnish sauna or treating his Raleigh Club friends to dine on reindeer."

[This is nearly the complete entry under Brooke taken from the Dictionary of National Biography]

Graeme Rymill
University of Western Australia Library