Shaw"; 28 April 1928 in Stalybridge, Cheshire – 27 November 2006 in Grantchester)[1][2] was a biologist and leading British expert on academic dress.

In 1946, his interests having shifted from chemistry to biology, he began full-time undergraduate studies at the University of Wales, initially at Swansea before transferring to Bangor.

Upon graduation, in 1950, he took up a teaching post at Deacon's School, Peterborough, and over the next three years he pursued research in cytogenetics in his spare time with assistance from colleagues at Cambridge.

[2] In 1966 the first edition of his authoritative work on British academic dress was published,[3] and received a positive review in The Guardian from Peter Preston, as well as a four-page vitriolic diatribe in The Oxford Magazine from his colleague and occasional collaborator Charles Franklyn.

Towards the end of his teaching career, in 1980, he was awarded a Schoolmaster's Fellowship to Girton College, Cambridge, which subsequently appointed him a Fellow Commoner.