James Johnston Shaw

James Johnston Shaw (4 January 1845 – 27 April 1910) was an Irish county court judge. Early life He was born at Kircubbin, County Down, Ireland on 4 January 1845, the second son among seven children of John Maxwell Shaw (died 1852), a merchant and farmer at Kircubbin, by his wife Anne, daughter of Adam Johnston. Shaw was first taught in a local national school, and later by James Rowan, Presbyterian minister of Kircubbin. In 1858 he was sent to the Belfast Academy, where he became a favourite pupil of the principal, Rev. Reuben John Bryce, LL.D. (uncle of James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce). In 1861 he entered Queen's College, Belfast, gaining the highest entrance scholarship in classics, the first of many honours. Diverging to the study of mental science and political economy, he graduated B.A. in 1865 and M.A. in 1866 in the Queen's University of Ireland with first-class honours in those subjects. In 1882 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from his university. Academic and professional career After studying theology in the General Assembly's College, Belfast, and at the University of Edinburgh, he was licensed to preach in 1869 by the Presbytery of Ards, and was appointed in the same year by the General Assembly Professor of Metaphysics and Ethics in Magee College, Derry. In 1878, he resigned this chair and was called to the Irish Bar, where he rapidly attained success. Meanwhile in 1876 he was elected Whately Professor of Political Economy in Trinity College, Dublin. Several papers on economic subjects which he read before the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, the British Association, the Social Science Congress, and elsewhere, were published and attracted attention. He became president of the Statistical Society in 1901.