Penistone Church FC

John Charles Shaw

​

John Charles Shaw was modern epithet of a mover and shaker. It is his name that emerges as the most prominent in the early development of football in Sheffield.

​

He was the founder and first captain of Hallam FC, the world’s second oldest football club. He later became president of Sheffield Football Association, being pivotal in developing the first universal set of rules for association football.

​

John Shaw was a pupil at the free Penistone Grammar School during the 1840s under the leadership of Samuel Sunderland.

​​

Born in the town in 1830, he was baptised by Sunderland at Penistone Church and then educated by him some years later. Shaw became very adept at the football Sunderland had introduced at the school. But it was after leaving school that he began to show sporting prowess.

​​

While his father was a cordwainer or shoemaker, John was articled to his uncle who was a surgeon at Attercliffe. However, he didn’t enjoy it and so moved into law, first for John Dixon’s solicitors in Sheffield before moving back to Penistone to work for John Dransfield.

​​

Dransfield had a young son called John Ness who, many years later while writing history books about Penistone, recalled watching John Shaw playing football on the field opposite his father’s office.

​​

Shaw married in 1853 and moved to Sheffield where he assumed the middle name Charles in a bid to raise his business profile as a law stationer. The 23-year-old still wanted to play football alongside his business venture, so he organised informal kickabouts with other young professionals on East Bank Park.

​​

This has since been regarded as the informal predecessor of Sheffield FC. Sides were chosen on an ad-hoc basis, sometimes in alphabetical order.

​​

A more structured approach came in 1857 with the formation of the world’s first football club, Sheffield FC by Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest. John Charles Shaw became a member in 1859 and some people, including John Ness himself, claim he was the first captain.

​​

That same year, he lost his first wife and became the sole parent of their two young sons aged two and four. He sought help from a housekeeper, Thirza Moorhouse, who happened to be the twin sister of John Marsh’s mother.

​​

In 1860 he founded Hallam FC, with their home ground at Sandygate at Crosspool becoming the first ground in football history to be used as the permanent venue for football. They played each other for the first time on Boxing Day 1860 at Sandygate, with captains Creswick and Shaw each fielding a 16-man side.

​​

In 1867, Hallam beat Norfolk to claim the world’s first football trophy, the Youdan Cup, Shaw captaining the side. That same year, Shaw was a member of the organising committee that led to the formation of Sheffield Football Association. In 1868 he was made Vice-President, being promoted to President  the following year, a position he held for 14 years.

During his tenure, he reached an agreement with Charles Alcock of the FA in 1877 regarding the rules of football. The two bodies amalgamated rules in 1877 which were the most crucial in the making of the modern game of association football prior to the onset of professionalism and leagues.

​

John Charles Shaw straddled these two decades being at the forefront of this development and was a continuous presence helping to influence and shape the evolution of the game.  The two decades  between 1857 and 1877 are the most crucial in the making of the modern game of association football.

​​

Shaw, then married for a second time and with four more children, moved to Birmingham for work. He second wife died suddenly in 1893 and he remarried for a third time in 1896 aged 56.

​

In his later years, Shaw got into politics, becoming organising secretary for the Conservative Party until he retired in 1912.  He died six years later aged 88 and is buried in an unmarked grave in Birmingham.

​