Dennis Shaw
Physicist who played a key role at Keble College, Oxford
DENNIS SHAW, who has died aged 93, was a physicist and an influential figure in British science during the second half of the 20th century.
Intimately associated with Keble College, Oxford where, for 35 years, his incisive mind made him an inspiring teacher, between 1975 and 1991 he also served as Keeper of Scientific Books at the Bodleian Library. In addition he was a long-serving Adviser to the Home Office, valued for the depth of his knowledge and soundness of his judgment.
Dennis Frederick Shaw was born on April 20 1924 and spent his formative years in Teddington, Middlesex. He was educated at Harrow County School before becoming an Exhibitioner at Christ Church, Oxford.
In 1944 he joined the Ministry of Aircraft Production as a junior science officer. Between 1950 and 1956 he served as a research officer at the Clarendon Laboratory. After completing a Dphil in theoretical physics, he migrated to North Oxford to serve Keble College, initially as a lecturer taking responsibility for Physics, Engineering, Geology and Mathematics. A tutorial fellowship soon followed.
Over the coming decades he would oversee an expansion of all aspects of college science, with the number of science fellows increasing from one to 12. A quiet, courteous presence, he exercised a benign influence over generations of aspiring physicists, though his disapproval could be bleak.
Unfailingly precise, literate and stylish, Shaw proved a fine writer and editor. Alongside many significant contributions to specialist journals, periodicals and symposia, his early reputation was forged with the publication in 1962 of An Introduction to Electronics. No less authoritative was his subsequent editorship of Information Sources in Physics and Electronic Publishing in Science. In later years he was often a keynote speaker at conferences and seminars.
Throughout his time at Keble, Shaw threw himself wholeheartedly into the affairs of the college. He succeeded Spencer Barratt as an adviser to the Governing Body on procedures and protocol, and took time out to coach the Third Eight. In the early 1960s he undertook the arduous office of Junior Dean, and while serving as organising secretary for the Oxford Science Admissions for the men’s colleges, he served as one of the two university members of Oxford City Council and was a member of the Oxfordshire and District Water Board.
From 1968 to 1970, he acted as director and treasurer of Keble’s Centenary Appeal, helping to raise more than £1.4 million towards the support of new fellowships and the erection of the modern accommodation that now envelops both the de Brayne and Hayward Quadrangles.
The many links he established with the Episcopal colleges in America brought a large number of young American scholars to Keble and led to a sabbatical semester for Shaw and his family at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1974.
Prior to his appointment as Keeper of the Scientific Books at the Bodleian, in 1961-2 he was visiting scientist at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva. Appointed a senior research scientific adviser to the Home Office in 1962, he served as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Police College board of governors, as chairman of the Police Scientific Development Committee and a regional adviser on civil defence.
Awarded a CBE in the 1974 New Year Honours, on his retirement from Keble in 1991, he was elected to an emeritus Fellowship.
In 1949 he married Joan Chandler, with whom, to mark his 90th birthday in 2014, he established an endowment for a fund to help support future physics students at Keble. She survives him with their three daughters and a son.
Dennis Shaw, born April 20 1924, died July 20 2017