Mexborough and Swinton Times February 17, 1917

Death of “Blondin” Shaw
Mexborough’s Most Remarkable Man

Mr John Shaw, 13, Dodsworth Street, Mexborough, died on Saturday of pneumonia, after a brief illness. He was a native of Mexborough, and in many respects one of the most remarkable men the town ever produced.

He was born 65 years ago, the son of Joseph Shaw, the skipper and owner of a seagoing barge. John Shaw did not take kindly to navigation, and after a few voyages his father gave up the attempt to make a sailor of him allowing him to follow his bent.

The lad went off with a whoop to join a circus, and was apprenticed to an Acrobat, who used him badly and beat him, and from whom, in the end, he ran away.

But his enthusiasm for the footlights, the ring, and the sawdust, was unabated, and he went from one end of the country to the other, giving performances on the trapeze and the tightrope, training performing dogs, and the like, earning large sums of money and spending it as prodigiously as he received it.

He became a master of his profession, and came to be known in many parts of the country. He excelled in all physical feats calling for agility, courage, and daring, and in the nature of things he had nerves of steel. During his career he once had the privilege of dancing with the famous Dan Leno. He was in great request by pantomime producers, and trained great numbers of entre-acte performers. He was also a very accomplished dancer.

Finally he gravitated back to Mexborough and settled down to a life of prosaic industry. But he never lost touch with his old enthusiasms and occasionally they would break out in the most startling fashion. Indeed, some of his most extraordinary exploits have been performed by him since.

An astonishing feat of daring in his career was performed at Denaby Main, shortly after the headgear of the Denaby Main colliery had been erected. He was at the time engaged in painting the head gear, and he promised his friends a treat in the shape of a thrilling balancing feat. He handsomely fulfilled his promise, for he laid a bar across the top of the headgear, directly over the shaft, and stood on his head above it for several seconds!

On another occasion he trundled a wheelbarrow on a rope carried across from the Red Lion Hotel to the high ground known as the “tipping” in Bank Street, some 30 yards away.

He was for 25 years employed as a haulage engineman in the Manvers Main mine, and was greatly respected by the management and men there.

In quite recent years he has given exhibitions of his acrobatic powers, and once executed a double somersault over his haulage engine while it was running.

His brother, Amos, was of a more sustained disposition, and followed the river and sea with his father, afterwards retiring on to a farm in the neighbourhood of Adwick le Street, and now he lives in retirement in Garden Street Mexborough, being over 70 years of age.

John Shaw made a very successful study of electrical treatment, and was employed by the Yorkshire Miners Association to apply it to men affected with rheumatism and sciatica. He had a widespread “practice,” and dispensed treatment up to within a week of his death.

He leaves a widow and two children.