Born in Sheffield on 24 July 1800, Henry was the son of Joseph Shaw and Sarah (née Poole).  His father was from Leicester and a Baptist, who had moved to Sheffield and started a partnership with Robert Jobson (d. 3 January 1832).   Their enterprise was in Roscoe Place, near St Philip’s Church, and they traded in fenders, kitchen stoves, and in brass and iron founding.   Joseph had a taste for speculative ventures, especially in the USA, and he accumulated heavy debts.  In 1817, Joseph withdrew from the partnership with Jobson.  In the following year, Joseph sailed for America to escape his creditors and Henry travelled with him.  

In 1819, Henry established a cutlery and hardware business in St Louis, selling hatchets and knives to fur traders and Native Americans.  He occupied a second floor room in North Main, St Louis, where he also lived.  A lifelong bachelor, with little sense of humour, it was said that Shaw had ‘no exceptional gifts of personality or physique’ (Faherty, 1987¹).  However, in business he was meticulous, prudent, and hard-working and soon began building a fortune by importing hardware and, in turn, exporting American cotton and furs to Europe.  Shaw was also a slave owner and on occasion a slave trader, who did not hesitate to hire bounty hunters to track down escaped slaves.  

By 1840, he had amassed a fortune of $¼ million and, aged 40, retired from hardware retailing and invested his money in real estate.  Although he did not abandon business entirely, he devoted the rest of his life to travel and botany.  In 1859, he founded the Missouri Botanical Garden.  His father died in Rochester, New York, 30 April 1844, aged 78.  Henry Shaw died in St Louis on 25 August 1889 and was buried in the private mausoleum in his Garden.   To say that Shaw had made good in the New World would be an understatement: his wealth was estimated at $2½ million. 

^1. Faherty, William Barnaby, Henry Shaw: His Life and Legacies (Columbia, Missouri, 1987)