Patrick Shaw-Stewart

Who was Patrick Shaw-Stewart?

Patrick Houston Shaw-Stewart was an Eton College and Oxford scholar of the Edwardian era who died on active service as a battalion commander in the Royal Naval Division during the First World War.

His career was one of great academic brilliance, matched by a steely determination to succeed. He came first in the Eton scholarship in 1901, a year after his friend, Ronald Knox, had come first in the same examination. He won the Newcastle Scholarship at Eton in 1905. At Oxford, he won the Craven, the Ireland, and the Hertford Scholarships in Classics as well as taking a double first in Classical Moderations in 1908 and Greats in 1910. Elected to a fellowship of All Souls, he instead committed his career to Barings Bank, where he was appointed one of the youngest managing directors in the bank's history, in 1913. At this time he became devoted to Lady Diana Manners and became a leading member of her "corrupt coterie," known simply as the Coterie. When war was declared in 1914, he joined the Royal Navy and, serving with Rupert Brooke, played a prominent role in the famed young poet's funeral in Greece. Promoted to lieutenant commander and in temporary command of the Hood Battalion, he was killed on 30 December 1917. He is buried at Metz-en-Couture in the British extension to the communal cemetery.