Charles Shaw (writer)
Australian writer and journalist (1900-1955)
Charles Herbert Shaw (10 August 1900 – 1 August 1955) was an Australian journalist and novelist.
Life and career
Shaw was born in South Melbourne, Victoria. Shaw was the eldest of six children. Shaw's family moved to north-western Victoria when he was a boy, but his parents died when he was in his early teens. When Shaw was 13, his father died. A year later, Shaw's mother died in a drowning accident in the Murray River.
After his parents deaths, Shaw worked various jobs including on sheep stations and in vineyards. He also worked as a farmhand, as a post hole digger, as a trapper, as a boundary rider and as a shearer. Returning to Melbourne, Shaw worked as a vacuum cleaner salesman and with a taxation office which Shaw later admitted he "conceived a long and lasting hatred for the civil service."
Working a variety of jobs during the Depression years he held a variety of jobs, his interest in writing led him to work at The Western Sun in Forbes, New South Wales. Shaw described this job as setting his foot on the ladder where he "wrote madly" on the variety of stories he would cover, stating: "In one day, I might cover a Methodist tea party, watch a body being dragged from the river and listen to a council row."
Shaw married schoolteacher Phoebe Matilda "Maxie" McLachlan on 18 January 1932 at the Presbyterian Church in the Sydney suburb of Auburn.
The public source identifies “Charles Shaw (writer)” as australian writer and journalist (1900-1955). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Charles, Shaw and writer.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Charles Shaw (writer)”, the useful work is to connect “australian writer and journalist (1900-1955)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3666413. VIAF identifies the subject as 17007886. The Library of Congress control number is no2007087720. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1900, 1955 and 1932.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Charles Shaw (writer)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Charles Shaw (writer) primary sources, Charles Shaw (writer) archive and Charles research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Charles Shaw (writer)”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Charles Shaw (writer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.