Joshua Shaw (1776–1860) was an

English American English Americans (historically known as Anglo-Americans) are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England. In the 2020 American Community Survey, 25.21 million self-identified as being of English origin. The term is distin ...

artist and inventor.

Early life

Joshua Shaw was born in Billingborough,

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

, England in 1776 and was orphaned at the age of 7. To survive he worked for a local farmer as a

bird scarer Bird scarers is a blanket term used to describe devices designed for deterring birds by startling, confusing or otherwise repeling them, typically employed in commercial settings by farmers to dissuade birds from consuming and defecating on recen ...

. During the three years he spent doing this work he discovered his artistic talent and began drawing the animals he encountered. After his mother remarried Shaw worked for his stepfather's plumbing and glazing business, and later as a

mail carrier A mail carrier, mailman, mailwoman, postal carrier, postman, postwoman, or letter carrier (in American English), sometimes colloquially known as a postie (in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom), is an employee of a post ...

Artistic career

At the age of 16 Shaw painted his first work: 10 commandments in St Michael's Church. His master, jealous of Shaw's skills, sent him to Manchester to work as a foreman. Shaw was able to find purchasers for his work and emerged from obscurity, traveling to London where his paintings attracted many wealthy clients. Shaw emigrated to the United States in 1817 and by 1819 settled in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

, where he established himself as an artist. In 1820 he collaborated with John Hill, an aquatint engraver, on a collection of large folio prints titled "Picturesque Views of American Scenery." Shaw provided the paintings, which Hill reproduced as prints. Shaw's landscape paintings were picturesque in style, a logical result of his English training. His landscapes typically included "a dark foreground, generalized trees or hills framing the composition in the foreground and middleground, a stream or lake, and distant hills. All of these elements are a direct influence of Claude Lorraine's 17th-century idealized landscapes of the Roman countryside."Naeve, Milo M., "Joshua Shaw," 150 Years of Philadelphia Painters and Paintings: Selections from the Sewell C. Biggs Museum (Philadelphia: The Library Company of Philadelphia and The Sewell C. Biggs Museum of American Art, 1999), p. 11. Claude Lorraine, in turn, was an influence on 18th and early 19th century British landscape painters. Although fellow artist William Dunlap called Shaw "an ignorant, conceited English blockhead," he participated actively in the cultural life of his adopted city. He helped promote the Artists' Fund Society of Philadelphia, established in 1834, and was instrumental in founding the Artists' and Amateurs' Association of Philadelphia in 1839. He also exhibited actively at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. By 1843 Shaw retired to

Bordentown, New Jersey Bordentown is a city in Burlington County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population was 3,924. The Deluge towards Its Close MET ap09

Inventions

Joshua Shaw (a.k.a. Joseph Shaw) claimed to have invented the copper

percussion cap The percussion cap or percussion primer, introduced in the early 1820s, is a type of single-use percussion ignition device for muzzle loader firearm locks enabling them to fire reliably in any weather condition. This crucial invention gave rise ...

in 1814, but experts no longer consider this a valid claim. He was an early developer of percussion primers and a gun dated to be no earlier than 1817, was made by William Smith of Lisle Street in London to test his prototype steel cap. Shaw, writing in the '' Journal of the Franklin Institute'' in 1829 clearly states that he adopted the use fulminate of mercury, which was improvement over the corrosive chlorate of potash fulminate patented by Alexander John Forsyth. In 1816 Forsyth filed for an injunction against

Joseph Manton Joseph Manton (6 April 1766 – 29 June 1835) was a British gunsmith. He innovated sport shooting, improved weapon quality and paved the way for the modern artillery shell. Manton was a sport shooter and a friend of Colonel Peter Hawker. ...

's patent for the tube lock or scent-bottle lock and the suit was found in favor of Forsyth in 1818. He also successfully filed suits against Joseph Vicars, William Beckwith, and Jackson Mortimer in 1811; Isaac Riviere in 1819, and Collinson Hall in 1819. Forsyth's patent expired on April 11, 1821. However, there was no evidence these lawsuits influenced Shaw. Shaw went to Philadelphia in 1817 and filed for a patent on June 19, 1822 and surrendered it to the Patent Office in 1829 to obtain a revised patent reissued on May 7, 1829. His patent was overturned by Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York in October 1829 and upheld in by the U.S. Supreme Court in January 1833. At some point prior to 1823 the U.S. Ordnance Department converted one of John Hall's breech-loading rifles to test Shaw's percussion caps and based on this, despite the Supreme Court ruling, successfully petitioned Congress for compensation for use of his patent. In 1846 the U.S. Congress authorized a payment to Shaw in the amount of $25,000. He received $18,000 on May 4, 1847 and the remainder by 1858. During the

Regency era The Regency era of British history officially spanned the years 1811 to 1820, though the term is commonly applied to the longer period between and 1837. King George III succumbed to mental illness in late 1810 and, by the Regency Act 1811, h ...

the percussion cap, along with Forsyth and Manton's inventions, became popular among hunters on both sides of the Atlantic. By 1827 copper percussion caps were manufactured by the millions in both England and France and imported to the U.S. A number of people in the U.S., including Joseph Cooper as early as 1824 were manufacturing them in smaller quantities by 1827. In the 1840s the British, French and Russian armies began adopting his form of ignition. The Austrians, by contrast, preferred the tube-lock derived from

's design.Myatt, F. ''The Illustrated Encyclopedia of 19th Century Firearms: An Illustrated History of the Development of the World's Military Firearms During the 19th Century.'' London: Tiger Books International, 1989. The Model 1841 Springfield rifled musket was the first percussion-lock firearm produced for the U.S. Ordnance Department. Shaw returned to England in 1833 with his new design for cannon locks. His invention was adopted by both the British and the Russians. By the time Shaw died in 1860 he was well-known and respected in America as a member of the

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...

; in addition to being an artist and scientist he was a prolific writer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Joshua 1776 births 1860 deaths People from Billingborough English emigrants to the United States Firearm designers 19th-century English painters English male painters People from Bordentown, New Jersey Artists from Philadelphia 19th-century English male artists