John Bennett Shaw (1913–1994)

John Bennett Shaw was born October 10, 1913, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He attended the University of Notre Dame (A.B., cum laude, 1937), pursued graduate work at Columbia University (1937-1938), and completed a M.A. in literature from the University of Tulsa in 1940. In 1965, Shaw was invested in the Baker Street Irregulars as "The Hans Sloane of My Age." He was given the Two Shilling Award by the BSI "for extraordinary devotion to the cause beyond the call of duty" in 1980.In his retirement, Shaw moved to Sante Fe, New Mexico, where he (along with his wife, Dorothy) continued to build what became the largest private collection of Sherlockiana in the world. He was well-known across the Unites States and abroad for his lectures on Sherlock Holmes, and his classic work, "The Basic Holmesian Library," (colloquially known as "The Shaw 100") remains a valued bibliography among collectors. In the mid-1980s Shaw arranged for the transfer of his collection to the University of Minnesota, a process that was completed a decade later. Shaw died in Sante Fe on October 6, 1994.