British Army Shaw was commissioned into the
52nd (Oxfordshire) Light Infantry as an
ensign by
purchase in 1813. He joined the 2nd Battalion, a training
cadre supplying drafts to the 1st Battalion serving in the
Peninsular War. In December 1813 the 2/52nd (only 196 strong) embarked in
Sir Thomas Graham's expedition to the
Low Countries. Shaw saw action at the capture of the village of
Merxem in deep snow on 31 January 1814, but the weak 2/52nd was an ineffective combat unit and was left out of Graham's attack on
Bergen-op-Zoom, being employed at the siege of Antwerp and subsequently on garrison duty. For the 1815 campaign the 2/52nd was drafted into the newly arrived 1/52nd. On 17 June, as a junior lieutenant (promoted December 1813) Shaw was sent to Brussels in charge of the baggage. Rushing back, he reached Waterloo village on the morning of 18 June, but to his chagrin was ordered to return to his duty and so missed the
Battle of Waterloo in which the 52nd bore a distinguished part. Nevertheless he did receive the
Waterloo Medal. He served in the Occupation of Paris and returned to the 2/52nd in England in 1816. The 2/52nd was disbanded in 1816 and Shaw was placed on
half pay. In 1817 he transferred to the
90th (Perthshire) Light Infantry. Before joining his new regiment Shaw took leave to travel on the Continent to further his military education. He enrolled as a student in the military department of the
Carolinum College at
Brunswick, then visited
Berlin to observe the
Prussian Army. He joined the 90th in March 1818, but the British Army continued to contract, and Shaw was soon on half pay again. He returned to Edinburgh University, then acquired a partnership in a wine import business in
Leith. In his spare time he acted as captain-commandant of the Leith Sharpshooters, a volunteer unit.
Liberating Army of Portugal Shaw sold his business interests to travel on the Continent in 1830. In 1831 he joined
Dom Pedro, former
Emperor of Brazil, who was in
London raising a force to restore his daughter
Queen Maria to the throne of Portugal, which had been usurped by his brother
Dom Miguel (the Portuguese
Liberal Wars). Under the
Foreign Enlistment Act 1819 it was illegal to recruit for foreign armies on British soil, but operating from the London slums of
Seven Dials and
Soho, keeping one step ahead of police raids, Shaw and the other ‘Liberators’ hired several hundred ‘labourers for Brazil’. They formed a
battalion of
marines for Dom Pedro's British-manned fleet, and Shaw was given command of the
Light Company with a
captain's
commission. In December 1831 they sailed to the
Azores, which was Pedro's base, and after training there the ‘Liberating Army of Portugal’ landed on the mainland near
Porto on 5 July 1832. Shaw with his Light Company were among the first to land and Shaw claimed to have personally fired the first shot of the campaign in a brush with a Miguelite
vedette. The force occupied Porto the same afternoon but were soon closely besieged by the
Miguelites. Shaw distinguished himself in the regular
sorties and assaults during the siege, and was wounded on several occasions. Dr Jebb, a former British Army surgeon serving with the Liberators, claimed to have operated on Shaw 12 times during the siege. After one attack, while a staff officer reported the heavy officer casualties, Dom Pedro suddenly asked after Shaw. On being told that he was not wounded, the Regent said, ‘I am glad of it, he seldom escapes’. Reinforcements arrived by sea during the winter, and the Marine battalion was expanded to a
regiment, with Shaw as one of the battalion commanders. He was then given command of a contingent of
Scottish recruits, which he formed into the ‘Scotch Fusiliers’(not to be confused with the British Army's
Royal Scots Fusiliers). After
Admiral Napier's naval victory at
Cape St Vincent, the Pedroites were able to use sea-lift capability to open a second front at
Lisbon, and Shaw and his men later joined this force. On 29 September 1833 they rushed
Óbidos, a town up the coast. By the following spring, Shaw commanded the whole British
Brigade. In May 1834 he and the Scotch Fusiliers served under Napier in a bloodless siege of
Ourém. The Miguelite army
capitulated soon afterwards, and Shaw marched the British Brigade to Lisbon on 1 June where he handed over command to a Portuguese officer. However, he remained in Portugal for another year, trying to get a financial settlement for his men – they were still awaiting full payment when Shaw published his memoirs in 1837. In 1835 he was awarded the knighthood of the
Order of the Tower and Sword.
British Auxiliary Legion In 1835 Shaw travelled to Glasgow with some of his veterans from Portugal to raise the 'Scotch Brigade' of the
British Auxiliary Legion under General
George de Lacy Evans for service in Spain during the
First Carlist War. On landing in Spain, Shaw was angry to discover that he was only to rank as a colonel, and not as a brigadier-general, and that his Scotch Brigade was broken up. He commanded a smaller brigade in the relief of
Bilbao, the march to
Vitoria, and the action on the Heights of Arbalan (16–22 January 1836). Shaw was made governor of Vitoria and struggled to equip the hospitals during the
typhus epidemic that broke out among the BAL's unfit, cold and hungry men. Shaw described ‘the hospitals choke full, four or five in a bed: discharging none except to their graves’. In February 1836 Shaw was given command of the Irish Brigade – 'decidedly the best brigade in the Legion’, he wrote - and was finally promoted to the rank of
Brigadier-General. He marched the brigade back to the coast in April, and embarked at
Santander as part of the BAL's seaborne relief expedition to
San Sebastian. He led the centre column during the fierce action of 5 May, when the BAL broke through three lines of Carlist besiegers, and even his enemies recognised the courage he showed. Shaw had been hit by a spent ball, and another had struck his watch. He was awarded the Spanish
Order of San Fernando. On 31 May 1836 Shaw and his brigade again took a leading part in defending the BAL's lines around the village of Alza against a fierce Carlist attack. On 11 July Shaw's brigade led a reconnaissance in force along the coast towards the French border, aiming to cut the Carlists off from the sea. While his battalions fought over a bridge, Shaw led a patrol right up to the walls of
Fuenterrabia. He felt that he could have seized this last Carlist seaport by coup de main if he had been supported, but no reinforcements reached him, and the Legion withdrew. Shaw's letter to his brother describing this action was leaked to the
Courier newspaper in London, which praised Shaw and denigrated the BAL's leadership. Evans accused Shaw of leaking the letter himself, with the result that Shaw resigned and returned to Britain. Shaw was
knighted by
Queen Victoria in 1838. ==Police career==