Brian Shaw was born on the 10th of February 1898 in Ilkeston, Derbyshire.  He began his career in 1914 as an apprentice pharmacist at Boots in Eastwood.  In 1915 he studied as a student teacher in Ilkeston and joined the University College Nottingham Officers Training Corps.  

Brian enlisted on the 10th January 1916 into The Sherwood Foresters and was then seconded to the 2/5th The South Staffordshire Regiment.  He served with them in the Irish Rebellion of 1916 and was then sent to France. He became a designated marksman and fought on the Somme, in Cambrai and at Passchendale.   He was awarded the Military Medal (reported in the London Gazette, 29th of August 1917) for bravery at Beauchamp, near Cambrai. 

He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant into the 10th Battalion The Lincolnshire Regiment on the 26th of January 1918 and was subsequently seconded to the newly formed RAF for pilot training.  He commanded a company of the 5th Sherwood Foresters TA from 1928 to 1939, being promoted to Captain in 1929. 

By the outbreak of the Second World War, he was promoted to Major, going with them to join the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France.  He became Temporary Lieutenant Colonel and commanded the 1/5th Battalion in the BEF in 1939 in the absence of Col H H Lilley who was on a course in England.  He saw action at the defence of the River Bresle, east of Dieppe.  He was responsible for getting most of the battalion out through Cherbourg when the Germans invaded France.   He was left behind after Dunkirk and spent from June to September 1940 in hiding before being captured near Poitiers while attempting to escape to Spain.  He was taken prisoner and spent the remainder of the war in an Oflag, a German prison camp for officers.   

When the war was over, he enrolled as a full-time student at University College, Nottingham. He graduated with a 1st class Honours degree in Chemistry in 1922 and obtained a PhD in 1927. 

Brian became the Officer Commanding the Nottingham University TNG. Corps (T.A) and was part of their shooting team. The team competed at the Imperial Meeting of the National Rifle Association at Bisley, and in 1950, they had a particularly outstanding year. Brian ‘was undoubtably the most prominent member of the team’ (as reported in The Forester: Regimental Journal of the Sherwood Foresters, December 1950) as he was awarded the King’s Medal, also known as the Army Best Shot Medal; he was the champion of the Army marksmanship contests. He remained an Officer commanding the University Training Corps until 1954 but remained with the university as a senior lecturer until 1965. 

He sadly died on the 7th of November 1999 aged 101 years having just been presented with The Legion d’Honneur by the French Government