Standing only 5'6½" tall, he put on copious weight near the end of his career, when his naturally corpulent build was dramatically accentuated.

A man of droopy aspect, bushed eyes, some classically Victorian facial hair and a belt nearer his breast than his substantial waist, he did not look the part of the era's finest medium-pacer, but there were few who questioned his credentials.

In 1881, he led a strike of Notts professionals, demanding a formal contract of employment to guarantee an automatic benefit at the end of an agreed playing period.

The high-handed Nottinghamshire committee thought this absolute anarchy and, apparently justified in its feeling that an amateur skipper was the way to go, dropped every member of the offending faction from the side.

Although he might by today's terms be called a seamer, back then Shaw was fundamentally a length bowler, holding a line on or just outside the off-stump: certainly, he often employed the off-theory, with as many as eight fielders patrolling the offside.

His run-up was made up of six rapid, economical steps, but, according to the man himself, "I really used to bowl faster than people thought I did, and I could make the ball break both ways, but not much.

However, although he was regarded almost universally as "the high priest of length", he and Ted Peate together poured scorn all over suggestions that they were capable of "hitting the spot" with nearly every delivery (as was the common perception).

Shaw's first-class bowling average is, by a quite substantial margin, the lowest of any bowler to have taken 2,000 or more wickets, but must be remembered that the pitches of the nineteenth century (particularly those at the start of his career) were far more bowler-friendly than they later became and are today.

Shaw helped fellow cricketers Andrew Stoddart and Arthur Shrewsbury to organise what became recognised as the first British Lions rugby union tour of Australia and New Zealand 1888/89.

The following year, at Trent Bridge (when it was so cold that KS Ranjitsinhji kept his hands in his pockets and fielded the ball with his feet), Shaw bowled 100.1 five-ball overs as his former team accrued a gargantuan 726.