PRIVATE JAMES FRIEND SHAW
LONDON REGIMENT
31ST AUGUST 1917 AGE 20
BURIED: MENDINGHEM MILITARY CEMETERY, PROVEN, BELGIUM
This is a terrible inscription, not only was twenty-year-old James Shaw killed in action but so were four of his brothers. However, what I find extraordinary is that there seems to be no information anywhere about this family tragedy. The Internet will tell you about the five Souls brothers and the five Beechey brothers but nothing about the five Shaw brothers.
From the censuses of 1901 and 1911, it appears that James was one of six brothers: Thomas, Henry, Edward, Jesse, John and James. Henry was killed on 15 September 1916, we know he's one of the brothers because he and James have the same parents according to the War Graves Commission records. There is a Jesse Shaw who was killed on 3 May 1915 serving with the Australian Infantry. There are no family details in his records but he seems to have been the only Jesse Shaw killed in the First World War and certainly an Australian website says he was Henry's brother. But who the other two brothers were - Thomas, Edward or John - it has not been possible to tell.
James, serving with the 20th Battalion the London Regiment, died of wounds received in action at Third Ypres. His father, Thomas Shaw, chose his inscription. His mother, Harriet, was alive in 1901 but dead in 1911 when father with Henry, Jesse, John and James were all boarders in a house at 50 St Donatt's Road, Lewisham.