Reginald Shaw was born on 23 June 1908 in Leytonstone, he was the son of Ernest Thomas Henry Shaw, a telegraphist, and Alice Fry Newman, daughter of a sea-captain. From Davies Lane Elementary School in Leytonstone he went to Raine's Foundation School in Stepney before doing a B Com Degree at the City of London College. He then entered St Bartholomew's where he qualified in 1943 and after a house surgeon's appointment at Bart's joined the RAMC (serving from 1944-46), rising to the rank of acting Major. He was especially influenced by E. K Martin, Ronald Belsey, George Alexander and Arthur Williams. After the war he transferred to the British Colonial Medical Service and worked for some time in British Columbia. Tennis, golf, gardening, economics and travelling were his interests outside medicine. Shaw never married. He retired to Barford St Michael, near Banbury where he died, aged 91, on 31 March 2000.