Patrick Comerford
It is always good to see new plaques or ways of commemorating pioneering people who have made an impact on public and social life in Lichfield. When I was in Lichfield a few months ago, I had noticed the name of Daisy Stuart Shaw on the Friary Clock Tower. A few days later, a plaque honouring her was unveiled at the house on Bore Street where she lived 100 years ago.
So, it was interesting last week the see the plaque that was unveiled recently at No 8 Bore Street, to honour this pioneering and forward-thinking woman.
Daisy Stuart Shaw (1861-1955) was the wife of Dr Thomas David Stuart Shaw, a Lichfield GP. She was the first woman councillor to sit on Lichfield City Council (1919), the first woman to become Mayor of Lichfield (1927-1928) and the first woman to become an Alderman of the city.
Daisy Stuart Shaw was born Daisy Ramsay in Edinburgh in 1861. She had been a nurse before she married Dr Thomas David Stuart Shaw, a general practitioner. The couple moved from Gloucester to Lichfield 120 years ago in 1905 when her husband took over the practice of Dr Welchman, a medical practice in Bore Street that dated back to the 1850s.
In Lichfield, Daisy became involved in working with the Victoria Cottage Hospital, which had opened on Sandford Street in 1889. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Freeford Manor, the home of the Dyott family near Lichfield, became a military hospital for soldiers wounded in action. Daisy worked there as a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) Red Cross nurse, looking after wounded soldiers.
In the last year of World War I, an act was passed in 1918 giving women the vote for the first time. The Act came after almost 30 years of campaigning, but was also a response to the women who had worked throughout the war in factories, farms and businesses. Thousands of men who had previously been disenfranchised, mainly because they were not house owners, were also given the vote.
Daisy Stuart Shaw became the first woman member of Lichfield City Council the following year when she was elected a councillor for the South Ward in November 1919. She was re-elected in 1923 and was a councillor for over 20 years. She took a particular interest in the rights of women, particularly women who were widows or on low incomes, in the welfare of children, and in housing reform.
Both Daisy and Thomas Stuart Shaw continued to be actively involved in the Victoria Cottage Hospital in the inter-war years. By the 1920s, the hospital on Sandford Street had become too small to meet the needs of an growing number of patients and the couple were involved in fundraising efforts to build a new, purpose-built, hospital on land off The Friary, on the other side of the Bowling Green public house.
Thomas provided his medical services to the new hospital voluntarily and they both dedicated many hours of their own time and funds, ensuring the success the new hospital in the days long before the National Health Service.
Meanwhile, Daisy was the first woman to become the Mayor of Lichfield, holding office in 1927-1928. As Mayor, she took part in the official reopening of the Clock Tower on The Friary in 1928, after it had been relocated, brick by brick, from its original location on the junction of Bore Street, Saint John Street and Bird Street. While Daisy was Mayor of Lichfield, the Sheriff of Lichfield in 1927-1928 was Joseph Henry Bridgeman, the son of Robert Bridgeman, the noted stonemason and wood carver, whose premises were on Quonians Lane, off Dam Street.
Ten years later, Daisy was honoured when she became the first woman to be made an alderman of Lichfield by Lichfield City Council in 1938 in recognition of her long service and dedication, and for her tireless voluntary work in and around the city.
After almost 40 years in Lichfield, the Stuart Shaws retired in 1945 and moved away from their adopted city. The general committee of the Victoria Hospital made a presentation to them, recognising their ‘outstanding services of a public and charitable nature’.
Daisy died in 1955 in Castle Douglas in her native Scotland. Her widowed husband died in 1960.
After more than half a century, Daisy Stuart Shaw’s commemoration was championed by the city council chair, Councillor Ann Hughes, who said she ‘learned about Daisy through the Wayward Women history group which set up plaques temporarily across the city in 2021.’ Her story has also been told by local historian and tour guide Jonathan Oates in the local magazine CityLife in Lichfield and on social media platforms.
A blue plaque celebrating Daisy’s life and contribution was installed at 8 Bore Street, her former home, earlier this year. It was unveiled on 7 March at a ceremony that also marked International Women’s Day and that included the Deputy Mayor, Councillor Claire Pinder-Smith, and the town crier, Adrian Holmes.
Sources/Further Reading:
Jono Oates, ‘Daisy Stuart Shaw’, Lichfield’s First Lady,’ CityLife in Lichfield, March 2025, p 47
(Professor) Janet Hunt, Staffordshire’s War: Voices of the First World War (Amberley, 2017)
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