Samuel Shaw (1635–1696) was an English nonconformist minister. Life The son of Thomas Shaw, blacksmith, he was born at Repton, Derbyshire, in 1635. From Repton Grammar School he went to St John's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted sizar, 23 December 1650, and graduated B.A. In 1656 he was appointed master of the grammar school at Tamworth, Warwickshire. Before 15 September 1657 he was called to be curate of the chapelry of Moseley, under John Hall, vicar of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, brother of Thomas Hall. There being no classis in Worcestershire, he was ordained by the presbyterian classis of Wirksworth, Derbyshire, on 12 January 1658. Some months later he was presented by Oliver Cromwell to the sequestered rectory of Long Whatton, Leicestershire (a crown living). His approbation and admission by the Triers are dated 28 May 1658, and he took possession on 5 June. The sequestered rector was Henry Robinson, a half-cousin of William Laud and his death enabled Shaw to obtain a crown presentation under the great seal (1 September 1660), with the act of the Convention parliament passed in the same month making good his title without institution. Next year, however, Shaw was removed (1661) from his living at the instance of Sir John Pretyman; he obtained no other benefice, and then the Uniformity Act 1662 disqualified him, as he refused to submit to re-ordination. He removed to Coates, in the parish of Prestwould, Leicestershire. Some relatives brought the bubonic plague there from London in 1665, and Shaw lost two children. At the end of 1666 he moved to Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, and was appointed master of the grammar school there in 1668. Through Edward Conway, Earl of Conway, he obtained a licence (26 December 1670) from Archbishop Gilbert Sheldon, on a modified subscription (to the first, third, and first half of the second article, specified in the thirty-sixth canon of the Thirty Nine Articles). William Fuller, bishop of Lincoln, who admired Shaw's book on the plague, added his own licence, on a subscription ‘dictated and inserted’ by Shaw himself. Thomas Barlow, who succeeded Fuller as bishop of Lincoln, was his correspondent. Shaw's school was successful, and his house was full of boarders, including several who became divines in the Church of England. He wrote comedies for his scholars, ‘which they acted for the entertainment of the town and neighbourhood at Christmas time.’ He rebuilt the schoolhouse, and erected a