Shaw studied medicine in Edinburgh and was appointed deputy botanical lecturer at Oxford. He then moved to London where he
co-founded the
Linnean Society in 1788. In 1791 he became assistant keeper of the natural history section of the British Museum and subsequently
became keeper in 1807. His
Naturalist's Miscellany , 24 vols (1789-1813) was Shaw's most important contribution to natural history.
Only those instances of Shaw in the diary where there is a link to the British Museum have been coded as George Shaw. These
occur in 1803 and twice in 1805. It is possible that
the Shaws mentioned in 1804 and 1808 are also George Shaw but this cannot be confirmed.
