View source for Flora Shaw, Baroness Lugard

{{Short description|British journalist and writer (1852–1929)}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2011}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}

{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific_prefix   = [[The Right Honourable]]
| name               = The Lady Lugard
| honorific_suffix   = {{postnominals|size=100%|country=GBR|DBE}} 
| image              = Tcitp d012 frederick john dealtry lugard and wife.jpg
| caption            = Lord and Lady Lugard.
| office             = Spouse of the [[Governor of Hong Kong]]
| term_start         = 29 July 1907
| term_end           = 16 March 1912
| governor           = [[Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard|Sir Frederick Lugard]]
| predecessor        = [[Edith Blake]]
| successor          = [[Helena May]]
| birthname          = Flora Louise Shaw
| birth_date         = {{birth date|df=yes|1852|12|19}}
| birth_place        = [[Woolwich]], England
| death_date         = {{death date and age|df=yes|1929|1|25|1852|12|19}}
| death_place        = [[Surrey]], England
| occupation         = Journalist, novelist
| spouse             = {{marriage|[[Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard|Frederick Lugard]]|1902}}
| nationality        = British
}}

'''Flora Louise Shaw, Baroness Lugard''' {{postnominals|country=GBR|DBE}} (born 19 December 1852 – 25 January 1929), was a [[British Empire|British]] [[journalist]] and [[writer]].<ref name=OxfordDNB>{{cite book|last1=Helly|first1=Dorothy O.|last2=Callaway|first2=Helen|title=Lugard, Dame Flora Louise, Lady Lugard (1852–1929)|date=2004|publisher=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|location=Oxford|edition=May 2006|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/38/101038618/|accessdate=11 October 2014}}</ref> She is credited with having coined the name ''[[Nigeria]]''.<ref name=ReworkNigeria>{{cite web|last1=Omoruyi|first1=Omo|title=The origin of Nigeria: God of justice not associated with an unjust political order|url=http://reworknigeria.blogspot.com/2010_01_19_archive.html|website=ReworkNigeria|date=2002}}</ref>

==Early life==
She was born at 2 Dundas Terrace, [[Woolwich]], [[South London]], the fourth of fourteen children, the daughter of an English father, Captain (later Major General) George Shaw, Royal Artillery, and a French mother, Marie Adrienne Josephine (née Desfontaines; 1826–1871), daughter of French governor of [[Mauritius]].<ref name=OxfordDNB/><ref name=":0">Clarke, Patricia. 'Flora Shaw: A ‘Lady from London’ in 1890s Queensland' Celebrating Independent Thought. ISAA twenty years on: 2015 Conference Proceedings, Independent Scholars Association of Australia, 2016 pp 33-50</ref> She had nine sisters, the first and the last dying in infancy, and four brothers.

Her paternal grandfather was [[Sir Frederick Shaw, 3rd Baronet|Sir Frederick Shaw]], third baronet (1799–1876), of [[Bushy Park, Dublin]], and a member of parliament from 1830 to 1848, regarded as the leader of the [[Irish Conservative Party|Irish Conservatives]]. Her paternal grandmother, Thomasine Emily, was the sixth daughter of the Hon. George Jocelyn, and granddaughter of [[Robert Jocelyn, 1st Earl of Roden|Robert Jocelyn]], first [[Earl of Roden]].<ref name="Bell">{{cite book|last1=Bell|first1=E. Moberly (Enid Moberly)|title=Flora Shaw, Lady Lugard, D.B.E.|date=1947|publisher=Constable|location=London}}</ref>

==Writing for children==
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooksby=yes|viaf=14760894}}
From 1878 to 1886, Shaw wrote five novels, four for children and one for young adults. In her books, young girls are encouraged to be resourceful and brave but in a traditional framework, acting in support of "gentlemanly" fathers and prospective husbands, rather than on their own behalf. Shaw's writing has been interpreted by one academic as sexually conservative and imperialist.<ref name="Thesis">{{cite book|last1=Carrington|first1=Bridget|url=http://roehampton.openrepository.com/roehampton/handle/10142/92180|title=Paths of virtue? The development of fiction for young adult girls|date=2009|publisher=Roehampton University|access-date=12 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141017074800/http://roehampton.openrepository.com/roehampton/handle/10142/92180|archive-date=17 October 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref> She also wrote a [[history of Australia]] for children.

Her first novel, ''Castle Blair'', was translated into several languages and continued to be extremely popular in the UK and the U.S. well into the 20th century. It was based on her own [[Anglo-Irish people|Anglo-Irish]] childhood experiences. [[Charlotte Mary Yonge]] recommended it along with works of "some of the most respected and loved authors available in late Victorian England" as "wild... attractive and exciting".<ref name="Thesis"/> The critic [[John Ruskin]] called ''Castle Blair'' "good, and lovely, and true".<ref name=Evolution>{{cite news|title=Roberts Bros' New Books|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gi06AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA20|accessdate=12 October 2014|work=The Evolution. A Weekly Review of Politics, Religion, Science, Literature and Art|page=208|date=December 1878}}</ref>

==Journalism==
Shaw first took advantage of a journalistic opportunity while she was staying with family friends in [[Gibraltar]] in 1886. Over four months, she visited [[Al-Zubayr Rahma Mansur|Zebehr Pasha]], a slaver and former governor of Sudan, who had been removed from office and was incarcerated there. Her reports purportedly led to his release.<ref name="Meyer2">{{cite book|last1=Meyer|first1=Karl E.|url=https://archive.org/details/kingmakersinvent0000meye|title=Kingmakers : the invention of the modern Middle East|last2=Brysac|first2=Shareen Blair|date=2008|publisher=W.W. Norton & Co.|isbn=978-0-393-06199-4|edition=1st|location=New York|url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name="NYT18872">{{cite news|date=16 October 1887|title=Zebehr Pasha's story|work=The New York Times|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1887/10/16/100937227.pdf|accessdate=11 October 2014}}</ref>

Upon her return to England, she wrote for ''[[The Pall Mall Gazette]]'' and the ''[[The Guardian|Manchester Guardian]]''.<ref name="NPGLugard">{{cite web|title=Flora (née Shaw), Lady Lugard (1852-1929), Author and journalist; wife of Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard|url=http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?LinkID=mp65594|website=National Portrait Gallery|accessdate=11 October 2014}}</ref> She was sent by the latter to cover the [[Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90]], where she was the only woman reporter. She became Colonial Editor for ''[[The Times]]'', which made her the highest paid woman journalist of the time.<ref name="NPGLugard" /><ref name="Meyer" /> At ''The Times'', she was sent as a special correspondent to [[Southern Africa]] in 1892; Australia in 1901; and New Zealand in 1892, partly to study the question of [[Kanaka (Pacific Island worker)|Kanaka]] labour in the sugar plantations of [[Queensland]]. [[Penneshaw, South Australia]] is partly named after her.<ref>[[Rodney Cockburn]] (1908) ''What's in a name? Nomenclature of South Australia'': Fergusson Publications {{ISBN|0-9592519-1-X}}</ref> She also made two journeys to Canada, in 1893 and 1898, the second including a journey to the gold diggings of [[Klondike Gold Rush|Klondike]].<ref name="HistoryToday">{{cite journal|last1=Usherwood|first1=Stephen|title=From Our Own Correspondent: Flora Shaw on the Klondike|journal=History Today|url=http://www.historytoday.com/stephen-usherwood/our-own-correspondent-flora-shaw-klondike|accessdate=12 October 2014}}</ref><ref name="EB1922">{{Cite EB1922|wstitle=Lugard, Sir Frederick John Dealtry|display=Lugard, Sir Frederick John Dealtry s.v. Flora Louise Shaw|volume=31|page=810}}</ref>

Her belief in the positive benefits of the [[British Empire]] infused her writing. As a correspondent for ''The Times'', Shaw sent back "Letters" in 1892 and 1893 from her travels in [[South Africa]] and Australia, later published in book form as ''Letters from South Africa'' (1893) and ''Letters from Queensland'' (1893)''.'' <ref name=":0" /> Writing for the educated governing circles, she focused on the prospects of economic growth and the political consolidation of self-governing colonies within an increasingly-united empire, with a vision largely blinkered to the force of colonial nationalisms and local self-identities.<ref name="Meyer" />

The lengthy articles in a leading daily newspaper reveal a late-[[Victorian era|Victorian]] metropolitan imagery of colonial space and time. Shaw projected vast empty spaces awaiting energetic English settlers and economic enterprise.<ref name="Codell">{{cite book|editor-last1=Codell|editor-first1=Julie F.|title=Imperial co-histories : national identities and the British and colonial press|date=2003|publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson university press|location=Madison (N.J.)|isbn=978-0838639733|pages=133|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QdZ0L8W3Ep4C&pg=PA133}}</ref><ref name="Meyer" /> When she first started writing for ''The Times'', she wrote under the name of "F. Shaw" to try to disguise that she was a woman. Later, she was so highly regarded that she wrote openly as Flora Shaw. Her pseudonym is now little-known, and she was regarded as one of the greatest journalists of her time, specialising in politics and economics.

Shaw was required to testify before the [[House of Commons]] Select Committee on [[British South Africa]] during the controversy on the [[Jameson Raid]] into the [[South African Republic|Transvaal]] on 29 December 1895. The prominent journalist had corresponded frequently with those involved or suspected of involvement, including [[Cecil Rhodes]], [[Leander Starr Jameson]], Colonel [[Frank Rhodes (British Army officer)|Francis Rhodes]], and Colonial Secretary [[Joseph Chamberlain]]. She was exonerated from all charges.<ref name="papers">{{cite web|title=Catalogue of the papers of Flora Shaw, Lady Lugard|url=http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/blcas/shaw-f.html|website=Bodleian Library|publisher=University of Oxford|accessdate=13 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170817211034/http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/blcas/shaw-f.html|archive-date=17 August 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Naming Nigeria===
In an essay that first appeared in ''The Times'' on 8 January 1897, by "Miss Shaw", she suggested the name "Nigeria" for the [[Protectorate#British protectorates|British Protectorate]] on the [[Niger River]].<ref name=ReworkNigeria/> In her essay, Shaw made the case for a shorter term that would be used for the "agglomeration of pagan and Mahomedan States" to replace the official title, "[[Royal Niger Company|Royal Niger Company Territories]]". She thought that the term "Royal Niger Company Territories" was too long to be used as a name of a real estate property, under the trading company in that part of Africa. She was in search of a new name, and she coined "Nigeria", in preference to terms such as "Central Sudan", which were associated with the area by some geographers and travellers.

She thought that the term "[[Sudan (region)|Sudan]]" was associated with a territory in the [[Nile Basin|Nile basin]]. In ''The Times'' on 8 January 1897, she wrote: "The name Nigeria applying to no other part of Africa may without offence to any neighbours be accepted as co-extensive with the territories over which the Royal Niger Company has extended British influence, and may serve to differentiate them equally from the [[Lagos Colony|colonies of Lagos]] and the [[Niger Coast Protectorate|Niger Protectorate]] on the coast and from the French territories of the Upper Niger."<ref name=Times1897>{{cite news|last1=Shaw|first1=Flora|title=Letter|work=The Times of London|page=6|date=8 January 1897}}</ref><ref name=Transcription>{{cite web|last1=Correspondent|first1=Special|title=Flora Shaw gives the name Nigeria|url=http://www.hh-bb.com/flora-shaw.pdf|publisher=Hogarth Blake|date=2008|accessdate=13 October 2014}}</ref><ref name=Ghosts>{{cite book|last1=Kwarteng|first1=Kwasi|title=Ghosts of Empire : Britain's Legacies in the Modern World.|date=2012|publisher=Perseus Books Group|location=New York|isbn=978-1-61039-120-7|edition=1st|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oQi7KqK6efQC&pg=PA273}}</ref> ([[Upper Senegal and Niger]] and the [[Colony of Niger]]).

==The Lady Lugard==
She was close to the three men who most epitomised the British Empire in Africa: [[Cecil Rhodes]], [[George Taubman Goldie]] and Sir [[Frederick Lugard]].<ref name="Meyer">{{cite book|last1=Meyer|first1=Karl E.|last2=Brysac|first2=Shareen Blair|title=Kingmakers : the invention of the modern Middle East|date=2008|publisher=W.W. Norton & Co.|location=New York|isbn=978-0-393-06199-4|edition=1st|url=https://archive.org/details/kingmakersinvent0000meye|url-access=registration}}</ref> On 10 June 1902,<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Court Circular |date=12 June 1902 |page=12 |issue=36792}}</ref> she married Lugard. She accompanied him when he served as [[Governor of Hong Kong]] (1907–1912) and [[List of Governors-General of Nigeria|Governor-General of Nigeria]] (1914–1919). In 1928, he her husband was elevated to the peerage as [[Baron Lugard]], and thus she became "The Lady Lugard". They had no children.<ref name="EB1922" />

While they lived in Hong Kong, she helped her husband establish the [[University of Hong Kong]]. During the First World War, she was prominent in the founding of the War Refugees Committee, which dealt with the problem of the [[Belgian refugees in Britain during the First World War|refugees from Belgium]], and she founded the Lady Lugard Hospitality Committee. In the [[1918 New Year Honours]], she was appointed as a [[Commander (order)|Dame Commander]] of the [[Order of the British Empire]].<ref name="EB1922" /> She died of pneumonia on 25 January 1929, aged 76, in [[Surrey]].<ref name="Orlando">{{cite web|title=Flora Shaw|url=http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=shawfl|website=The Orlando Project|publisher=Cambridge University Press|accessdate=13 October 2014|archive-date=22 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141022213540/http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=shawfl|url-status=dead}}</ref>

== Legacy ==
In her obituary, ''The Times'' foreign editor described her as “the finest flower of modern womanhood, a womanly woman, who at the same time possessed the reasoning capacity of a man”. Her biography was written in 1947 by Enid Moberly Bell, daughter of and assistant to [[Charles Frederic Moberly Bell]], managing director of ''The Times.''

In 2019, in the wake of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, ''The Times'' published an essay "How The Times helped Cecil Rhodes in his conquest of Africa" by columnist Ben Macintyre, reckoning with Shaw's role in Britain's colonial history. The essay concluded: "...Flora must not fall. Instead, she should stay right where she is, but with a new plaque attached: 'Flora Shaw, 1852-1929; pioneer journalist, fanatical imperialist, passionate, principled and wrong.'"<ref>{{Cite news |last=Macintyre |first=Ben |date=2024-01-28 |title=How The Times helped Cecil Rhodes in his conquest of Africa |newspaper=[[The Times]] |url=https://www.thetimes.com/comment/article/how-the-times-helped-cecil-rhodes-in-his-conquest-of-africa-9gz3z3thg |access-date=2024-01-28 |language=en |issn=0140-0460}}</ref>

== Works ==
In 1905, Shaw wrote what remains the definitive history of [[Sudan (region)|western Sudan]] and the modern settlement of [[Northern Region, Nigeria|Northern Nigeria]], ''A Tropical Dependency: An Outline of the Ancient History of the Western Soudan, With an Account of the Modern Settlement of Northern Nigeria''.

* ''Castle Blair: A story of youthful days'' (First published London, 1877)<ref name="Thesis2">{{cite book |last1=Carrington |first1=Bridget |url=http://roehampton.openrepository.com/roehampton/handle/10142/92180 |title=Paths of virtue? The development of fiction for young adult girls |date=2009 |publisher=Roehampton University |access-date=12 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141017074800/http://roehampton.openrepository.com/roehampton/handle/10142/92180 |archive-date=17 October 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
* ''Hector, a story'' (First serialized in ''[[Aunt Judy's Magazine]]'', 1880–1881)<ref name="Thesis2" />
* ''Phyllis Browne'' (First serialized in ''Aunt Judy's Magazine'', 1881–1882)<ref name="Thesis2" />
* ''A Sea Change'' (First published London, 1885)<ref name="Thesis2" />
* ''Colonel Cheswick's Campaign'' (Boston, 1886).<ref name="Write4children2">{{cite journal |last1=Carrington |first1=Bridget |date=April 2010 |title=Many leagues behind: Researching the history of fiction for YA girls |url=http://www.winchester.ac.uk/academicdepartments/EnglishCreativeWritingandAmericanStudies/Documents/w4cissue2cApr.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Write4Children |publisher=Winchester University Press |volume=1 |issue=2 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141017195102/http://www.winchester.ac.uk/academicdepartments/EnglishCreativeWritingandAmericanStudies/Documents/w4cissue2cApr.pdf |archive-date=17 October 2014 |accessdate=12 October 2014}}</ref>
* ''The story of Australia'' (London: [[Horace Brooks Marshall, 1st Baron Marshall of Chipstead|Horace Marshall]], 1897), as part of the ''Story of the Empire'' series.
* ''Letters from Queensland/ by the Times special correspondent'' (London, 1893)<ref name=":0" />

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links==
{{wikisource|works=or}}
*{{cite web|title=Catalogue of the papers of Flora Shaw, Lady Lugard|url=http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/blcas/shaw-f.html|website=Bodleian Library|publisher=University of Oxford|access-date=13 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170817211034/http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/blcas/shaw-f.html|archive-date=17 August 2017|url-status=dead}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lugard, Flora Shaw, Lady}}
[[Category:1852 births]]
[[Category:1929 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century British novelists]]
[[Category:British expatriates in Hong Kong]]
[[Category:British journalists]]
[[Category:British columnists]]
[[Category:British baronesses by marriage]]
[[Category:English people of French descent]]
[[Category:Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:Deaths from pneumonia in England]]
[[Category:People from Woolwich]]
[[Category:The Times people]]
[[Category:University of Hong Kong]]
[[Category:People from Templeogue]]
[[Category:People of the Klondike Gold Rush]]
[[Category:Wives of knights]]
[[Category:British foreign correspondents]]