User:The Mirror Cracked/John Shaw's Club

John Shaw's Club was a social club that existed in Manchester from before 1745 until 1959. It was founded by the eponymous John Shaw and went through a number of incarnations in its almost two hundred years of existence.

John Shaw
John Shaw was born around 1715, though the exact date is not known. his parents were Bernard and Sarah Shaw. He served as a dragoon and later as a sheriff's officer. In 1738, he retired as a sheriff and became a licensed victualler of a tavern in the "Old Shambles" off Market Place in Manchester. His pub was famed for its punch, and it gradually became known as a venue for political discussion amongst the tories of Manchester.

Jacobite sympathies
John Shaw is believed to have met Bonnie Prince Charlie when he visited Manchester in 1745. John Shaw was probably a Jacobite sympathiser, despite the fact that he was a paid informer for General Wade. Certainly his club had a number of noted Jacobites in it, and was generally sympathetic to the cause in the years when this was a dangerous position to take.

Founding of the Club
During the late 1740s and early 1750s, John Shaw's Punch House continued to thrive, and gathered an ever more exclusive clientele, with Manchester worthies like John Byrom -known as the "Poet Laureate of the Jacobites - and James Massey. Gradually the Punch House became more known as the venue for John Shaw's Club, with Massey appointed as its first President. Massey was also the first president of the Manchester Royal Infirmary and the club supported the Infirmary in its early years.