Brother Shaw

Brother Shaw was born within sight of the Thames, in the crowded lanes that climb towards Greenwich. His father clerked for merchants who traded up and down the river; his mother kept rooms that saw a steady traffic of sailors, royal servants and men who spoke of northern coasts in thick Scottish accents. From them he learned that the river carried more than cargo. It ferried stories, grudges, alliances and opportunities between the City and the sea.

As a young man, Shaw travelled north in the service of Scottish merchants newly favoured at the English court. On those journeys he discovered golf on the links, and, more importantly, the gatherings that followed the last hole. He played with little elegance, but he stayed late, listening in cramped rooms as men retold their rounds and quietly arranged their futures over ale. In St Andrews he heard the lingering rumours of a barrow man, long gone, who had once turned thirsty golfers into a circle of regulars. Shaw did not know the name Liang, but he recognised the pattern: service first, then stories, then influence.

When James VI came south in 1603 to become James I, the king's Scots brought their game to the higher ground of Blackheath, just above the royal palace at Greenwich. There were no permanent clubhouses, only wind, royal watchers, and a few men with enough leisure to chase a feathered ball. Shaw saw the same gap he had seen in Scotland: no proper place to end the round. London taverns were crowded and political; court rooms were stiff and watched. Between them lay the heath and the riverside inns that served it.

Shaw quietly brokered understandings with innkeepers and ale-wives along the road between Greenwich and the riverside wharves. He would steer the right men into the right rooms, keep quarrels low and credit flowing, and in return he would always have a corner ready for 'his' golfers when they came down off the hill. In those corners, court officials, shipowners and merchants learned that a Blackheath round did not truly finish on the last green, but at a shared table within sight of the Thames.

By the time Blackheath was later celebrated as England's oldest golf club, the habit of ending the day in Shaw's chosen rooms was deeply rooted. Scottish exiles met London bankers; naval officers preparing for distant voyages met factors who knew the schedules of East-bound ships. The Order's unwritten customs – one glass for the worst shot, one for the bravest, one for the story worth retelling – took on an English accent. Shaw never called himself a founder of anything. Yet within the Order he is remembered as the man who anchored Liang's spirit on the heath above Greenwich, setting the stage for the river itself to carry those customs out into the wider world.