Journeying first via the United States and landing in
Yokohama on September 25, 1873, Shaw arrived with William Ball Wright under the auspices of the
Society for Propagation of the Gospel as the Society's first missionaries to Japan. After consultation with British Envoy
Sir Harry Smith Parkes, Shaw and Wright chose to live outside the confines of the foreign concession at
Tsukiji in order to better minister and engage with the local population. With the help of British Legation staff both were able to find living quarters in the Daishoji Temple (大松寺) in the
Mita district of central Tokyo.
Association with Fukuzawa Yukichi In the spring of 1874 Shaw took up residence in the home of
Fukuzawa Yukichi, founder of
Keio Gijuku Daigaku, initially as the teacher of Fukuzawa's three eldest children, but also having the opportunity to teach ethics classes to students at
Keio Gijuku Daigaku itself. Shaw stayed with Fukuzawa and his family for two years while conducting Sunday School classes at the Daishoji temple. He became highly proficient in the Japanese language and as early as 1875 was collaborating with his language teacher, Tajimi Juro, in writing responses to Japanese language newspapers when Christian doctrines and practices were publicly questioned or misunderstood. Due to his teaching position in one of the leading Western studies schools in Japan, Shaw was able to engage with and later baptize young Christian converts who would later become prominent political and business leaders of Japan. In the four years from 1873 to 1877, Shaw and Wright were able to draw 150 people to Christianity including Yamagata Yokoni, subsequently ordained as the first Japanese deacon in the
Anglican Church in Japan.
Establishment of a Mission Church In 1879 Shaw was able to establish
St. Andrew's Church on an elevated piece of ground at Shiba Koen, which soon became the center of Anglican Christian worship and clergy training in Tokyo. St. Andrew's, intended by Shaw primarily as a mission church for his Japanese congregation, became one of the first Anglican churches in Japan to have an autonomous, indigenous ministry when in 1894,
John Toshimichi Imai was appointed rector. The original 1879 church, a red brick structure, designed by Charles Alfred Chastel de Boinville, was financed in part by contributions from foreign residents in Tokyo under the direction of Parkes as Chairman of the Church Committee. From its earliest days the church building was a shared resource between Japanese and English-speaking congregations with members of the foreign community attending services conducted by Armine F. King. Although the original building was destroyed by an earthquake in 1894, and a subsequent structure was lost in the
1944 Allied incendiary bombing, the rebuilt St. Andrew's Church, now known as
St. Andrew's Cathedral is the current Cathedral Church of the Tokyo Diocese of the
Nippon Sei Ko Kai. Shaw and
James Main Dixon are credited with popularizing
Karuizawa as a summer resort as a result of their visit in 1886. The Shaw Memorial Chapel and Shaw House nearby, a reconstruction of the timber-framed Summer house enjoyed by Shaw and his family in the 1890s, are popular visitor attractions close to Karuizawa Old Town. In 1886
Edward Bickersteth was appointed Anglican Bishop for Japan and took up residence in Tokyo and was to remain for eleven years. As honorary chaplain to the British Legation, Shaw was an official guest on the 29 November 1890 at the first State Opening of Parliament by
Emperor Meiji. After the passing of the revised
Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation in 1894, Archdeacon Shaw was formally thanked by the Japanese Government for his services in presenting Japanese opinions and culture to the outside world. Shaw died in Tokyo in 1902 of heart failure following a bout of
influenza and was buried at
Aoyama Cemetery. On Shaw's death, his widow was presented by the Emperor with the sum of 1,000 Yen in token of his appreciation of Shaw's services to the nation. ==Family==