Lieutenant-General Sir Rufane Shaw Donkin GCH KCB FRS FRGS (1772 – 1 May 1841), was a British Army officer of the Napoleonic era and later Member of Parliament.

Young Rufane was baptised at St David's Church, Exeter, on 9 October 1772 with the name Rusaw Shaw Donkin..

He served with Cathcart in Denmark in 1807 and two years later won command of a brigade of three regiments in the army in Portugal, which he led in victory at the Second Battle of Porto (May 1809).

He served there from 1810 to 1813, taking part in the Catalan expeditions under Lieutenant-General Frederick Maitland (1812) and Lord William Bentinck (1813).

The death of his young wife Elizabeth Frances née Markham[2][3] seriously affected him, after that he went to the Cape of Good Hope on extended sick leave.