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Flora Shaw, Baroness Lugard
Flora Louise Shaw, Baroness Lugard DBE (born 19 December 1852 – 25 January 1929), was a British journalist and writer. She is credited with having coined the name Nigeria.
She was born at 2 Dundas Terrace, Woolwich, South London, the fourth of fourteen children, the daughter of an English father, Captain (later Major General) George Shaw, Royal Artillery, and a French mother, Marie Adrienne Josephine (née Desfontaines; 1826–1871), daughter of French governor of Mauritius. She had nine sisters, the first and the last dying in infancy, and four brothers.
Her paternal grandfather was Sir Frederick Shaw, third baronet (1799–1876), of Bushy Park, Dublin, and a member of parliament from 1830 to 1848, regarded as the leader of the Irish Conservatives. Her paternal grandmother, Thomasine Emily, was the sixth daughter of the Hon. George Jocelyn, and granddaughter of Robert Jocelyn, first Earl of Roden.
From 1878 to 1886, Shaw wrote five novels, four for children and one for young adults. In her books, young girls are encouraged to be resourceful and brave but in a traditional framework, acting in support of "gentlemanly" fathers and prospective husbands, rather than on their own behalf. Shaw's writing has been interpreted by one academic as sexually conservative and imperialist. She also wrote a history of Australia for children.
Her first novel, Castle Blair, was translated into several languages and continued to be extremely popular in the UK and the U.S. well into the 20th century. It was based on her own Anglo-Irish childhood experiences. Charlotte Mary Yonge recommended it along with works of "some of the most respected and loved authors available in late Victorian England" as "wild... attractive and exciting". The critic John Ruskin called Castle Blair "good, and lovely, and true".
Shaw first took advantage of a journalistic opportunity while she was staying with family friends in Gibraltar in 1886. Over four months, she visited Zebehr Pasha, a slaver and former governor of Sudan, who had been removed from office and was incarcerated there. Her reports purportedly led to his release.
Upon her return to England, she wrote for The Pall Mall Gazette and the Manchester Guardian. She was sent by the latter to cover the Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90, where she was the only woman reporter. She became Colonial Editor for The Times, which made her the highest paid woman journalist of the time. At The Times, she was sent as a special correspondent to Southern Africa in 1892; Australia in 1901; and New Zealand in 1892, partly to study the question of Kanaka labour in the sugar plantations of Queensland. Penneshaw, South Australia is partly named after her. She also made two journeys to Canada, in 1893 and 1898, the second including a journey to the gold diggings of Klondike.
Her belief in the positive benefits of the British Empire infused her writing. As a correspondent for The Times, Shaw sent back "Letters" in 1892 and 1893 from her travels in South Africa and Australia, later published in book form as Letters from South Africa (1893) and Letters from Queensland (1893). Writing for the educated governing circles, she focused on the prospects of economic growth and the political consolidation of self-governing colonies within an increasingly-united empire, with a vision largely blinkered to the force of colonial nationalisms and local self-identities.
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Flora Shaw, Baroness Lugard
Flora Louise Shaw, Baroness Lugard DBE (born 19 December 1852 – 25 January 1929), was a British journalist and writer. She is credited with having coined the name Nigeria.
She was born at 2 Dundas Terrace, Woolwich, South London, the fourth of fourteen children, the daughter of an English father, Captain (later Major General) George Shaw, Royal Artillery, and a French mother, Marie Adrienne Josephine (née Desfontaines; 1826–1871), daughter of French governor of Mauritius. She had nine sisters, the first and the last dying in infancy, and four brothers.
Her paternal grandfather was Sir Frederick Shaw, third baronet (1799–1876), of Bushy Park, Dublin, and a member of parliament from 1830 to 1848, regarded as the leader of the Irish Conservatives. Her paternal grandmother, Thomasine Emily, was the sixth daughter of the Hon. George Jocelyn, and granddaughter of Robert Jocelyn, first Earl of Roden.
From 1878 to 1886, Shaw wrote five novels, four for children and one for young adults. In her books, young girls are encouraged to be resourceful and brave but in a traditional framework, acting in support of "gentlemanly" fathers and prospective husbands, rather than on their own behalf. Shaw's writing has been interpreted by one academic as sexually conservative and imperialist. She also wrote a history of Australia for children.
Her first novel, Castle Blair, was translated into several languages and continued to be extremely popular in the UK and the U.S. well into the 20th century. It was based on her own Anglo-Irish childhood experiences. Charlotte Mary Yonge recommended it along with works of "some of the most respected and loved authors available in late Victorian England" as "wild... attractive and exciting". The critic John Ruskin called Castle Blair "good, and lovely, and true".
Shaw first took advantage of a journalistic opportunity while she was staying with family friends in Gibraltar in 1886. Over four months, she visited Zebehr Pasha, a slaver and former governor of Sudan, who had been removed from office and was incarcerated there. Her reports purportedly led to his release.
Upon her return to England, she wrote for The Pall Mall Gazette and the Manchester Guardian. She was sent by the latter to cover the Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90, where she was the only woman reporter. She became Colonial Editor for The Times, which made her the highest paid woman journalist of the time. At The Times, she was sent as a special correspondent to Southern Africa in 1892; Australia in 1901; and New Zealand in 1892, partly to study the question of Kanaka labour in the sugar plantations of Queensland. Penneshaw, South Australia is partly named after her. She also made two journeys to Canada, in 1893 and 1898, the second including a journey to the gold diggings of Klondike.
Her belief in the positive benefits of the British Empire infused her writing. As a correspondent for The Times, Shaw sent back "Letters" in 1892 and 1893 from her travels in South Africa and Australia, later published in book form as Letters from South Africa (1893) and Letters from Queensland (1893). Writing for the educated governing circles, she focused on the prospects of economic growth and the political consolidation of self-governing colonies within an increasingly-united empire, with a vision largely blinkered to the force of colonial nationalisms and local self-identities.