Robert Gould Shaw II

Shaw, Robert Gould II
Born	June 16, 1872(1872-06-16) Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Died	March 29, 1930(1930-03-29) (aged 57)[1][2] Newton, Massachusetts, United States
Resting place	Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, United States
Nationality	United States
Other names	RGS II
Known for	wealthy Massachusetts landowner and socialite
Spouse	Nancy Witcher Langhorne (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964)
Children	Robert Gould Shaw III (18 August 1898 – 10 July 1970) Louis Agassiz Shaw II (ca. 1906 – ca. 1987)
Parents	Quincy Adams Shaw (8 February 1825 – 12 June 1908) Pauline Agassiz Shaw (6 February 1841 – 10 February 1917)
Relatives	brother: Louis Agassiz Shaw (1861 – 1891) cousin: Robert Gould Shaw (1837 – 1863) nephew: Louis Agassiz Shaw Junior (1886 – 1940) maternal uncle: Henry Lee Higginson (1834 – 1919) maternal uncle: Alexander Emanuel Agassiz (1835 – 1910) paternal uncle: Francis George Shaw (1809 – 1882) first cousin, once removed: Francis Parkman (1823 – 1893) maternal grandfather: Louis Agassiz (1807 – 1873) maternal grandmother: Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz (1822 – 1907) paternal grandfather: Robert Gould Shaw (1776 – 1853) paternal grandmother: Elizabeth Willard Parkman (1785 – 1853) paternal granduncle: George Parkman (1790 – 1849)
Notes [3]

Robert Gould Shaw II (sometimes referred to as RGS II, June 16, 1872 – March 29, 1930) was a wealthy landowner and socialite of the leisure class in the greater Boston area of Massachusetts during the late 19th century, in an era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States referred to as the Gilded Age.

Born in 1872 into one of the wealthiest and most influential families in Boston, he was given the same name as his paternal grandfather, Robert Gould Shaw (1776 – 1853). His first cousin was also named Robert Gould Shaw (RGS, 1837 – 1863). RGS was a colonel in the Volunteer Army of the United States during the American Civil War, and commander of the all-black 54th Regiment. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw was killed in action during the Second Battle of Fort Wagner in 1863, nine years before the birth of RGS II. It is not clear whether RGS II was named after his grandfather or after his cousin.

RGS II had a reputation for intemperance and promiscuity. His first wife was Nancy Witcher Langhorne, who later divorced him and married Waldorf Astor. His two children (Robert Gould Shaw III and Louis Agassiz Shaw II) suffered from depression and alcoholism. Louis Agassiz Shaw II committed a murder in 1964 for which he never stood trial (he was remanded instead to a psychiatric hospital for the rest of his life). Robert Gould Shaw III (RGS III, more commonly referred to as "Bobbie") committed suicide in 1970.

Contents 1 Family and early life 2 First marriage 3 Second marriage 4 Death and legacy 5 In popular culture 6 References 7 External links

Family and early life

RGS II was the youngest child of Quincy Adams Shaw and Pauline Agassiz. Quincy Adams Shaw was one of the wealthiest men in Massachusetts as a result of his investment in the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company. His four older siblings were Louis Agassiz, Pauline, Marian, and Quincy Adams Junior.^[3] While his maternal grandfather was born in Switzerland, his father's side of the family had roots extending back to the Mayflower. Aside from his parents and cousin, RGS II's family had many notable members, including:

• His paternal uncle was Francis George Shaw (October 23, 1809 – November 7, 1882), an outspoken advocate of the abolition of slavery.^[4][5]
• His maternal uncle was Henry Lee Higginson (1834 – 1919), a noted businessman, philanthropist, and founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
• Another of his maternal uncles was Alexander Emanuel Agassiz (1835 – 1910), who served as president of Calumet and Hecla Mining Company from 1871 – 1910, as well as president of the United States National Academy of Sciences (1901 – 1907).
• His first cousin (once removed) was Francis Parkman Junior (1823 – 1893), a noted American historian and author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life.^[3][6]
• His grandfather was Louis Agassiz (1807 – 1873), a prominent paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist, and scholar of the Earth's natural history.
• His grandmother was Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz (1822 – 1907), a teacher and the co-founder and first president of Radcliffe College.
• His granduncle was George Parkman (1790 – 1849), a murder victim in a highly publicized case that shook the city of Boston to its core in 1849 – 1850, due to the gruesome nature of the crime and the high social station of both the victim and the murderer.
• His nephew was Louis Agassiz Shaw Junior, a professor of physiology at Harvard Medical School and co-inventor of the first widely used iron lung.^{[7][8][9][10]}

First marriage

RGS II met Nancy Witcher Langhorne (1879 – 1964) of Danville, Virginia, daughter of railroad millionaire Chiswell Dabney Langhorne and Nancy Witcher Keene. The couple were married in New York City on October 27, 1897. The couple were married for only four years and had one child, Robert Gould Shaw III (August 18, 1898 – July 10, 1970), referred to affectionately as "Bobbie".^[11]

The marriage was a disaster for both RGS II and his wife Nancy. RGS II's friends accused Nancy of being puritanical and rigid, while Nancy's friends contended that RGS II was an alcoholic^[12] and a womanizer.^[13] Nancy left RGS II numerous times during their brief marriage, the first time during their honeymoon. In 1903, Nancy's mother died and Nancy divorced RGS II,^[1][14] returning to Mirador, her childhood home.^[15]

In 1905, while a passenger on a trans-Atlantic ship to England, the recently-divorced Nancy Shaw met Waldorf Astor. The couple were married in May 1906, settling in Cliveden, the Astor family estate in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England.^[16] In 1919, Nancy Astor became the first woman to sit as a Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons.^[17]

After his ex-wife and son moved to England, RGS II had a limited role in Bobbie's life. Bobbie was educated at the Shrewsbury School in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England.^[11] Bobbie briefly served in the Life Guards (the senior regiment of the British Army and part of the Household Cavalry), but he experienced increasing difficulty in his personal and professional life as a result of his homosexuality, alcoholism and depression.^[13] In 1931, he was imprisoned for six months for homosexuality.^[11]

Along with his worsening alcoholism, the 1963 Profumo Affair, his mother's death in 1964, and the sudden death of his half-brother William Waldorf Astor in 1966 may have increased his suicidal tendencies. After years of struggling with depression and suicidal ideation, Bobbie finally committed suicide on July 10, 1970.^[11] He is buried in the chapel at Cliveden.^[18] John Singer Sargent painted an oil portrait of Nancy Viscountess Astor in 1909, and also did a 1923 charcoal portrait of Bobbie in his military uniform. Lady Astor gave the portrait to Alfred Edward Goodey, art collector and Bobbie’s partner, and it was later sold in England in 2011 for £23,000.^[11]

Second marriage

RGS II later married Mary Hannington (1874 – 1937)^[19] and had one more child, Louis Agassiz Shaw II (ca. 1906 – ca. 1987), by this second marriage. RGS II purchased a tract of land in Oak Hill, Newton, shortly after the death of its owner, William Sumner Appleton (1840 – 1903, father of William Sumner Appleton Junior). He commissioned Boston architect James Lovell Little Junior to design and construct several buildings on the property, including a carriage house and horse stable in 1910,^[20] a cow barn in 1912,^[21] and a primary residence (the Appleton/Shaw House) in 1912.^[22] The family lived briefly in a brownstone building located at 35 Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay in 1915, presumably while awaiting the completion of their new home in Newton.^[23]

Like RGS (his first cousin once removed), Louis Agassiz Shaw II was a member of the Porcellian Club, a men's-only final club at Harvard University. Also like his father (RGS II) and half-brother (RGS III), Louis Agassiz Shaw II struggled with depression and alcoholism.^[13]

Louis Agassiz Shaw II graduated from Harvard in 1929. That year, he published a novel with the title Pavement, under the pen name Louis Second. After graduation, he lived in a sprawling 15-room mansion in Topsfield, a town founded by the Gould family. An eccentric snob, he kept a copy of the Social Register next to the telephone, instructing his staff not to accept calls from anyone not listed on the register. He often rode his horse along a bridle path from his estate, through the area now known as the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary in order to reach the Myopia Hunt Club. General George S. Patton's (1885 – 1945) property was also situated on this route.^[24]

Louis Agassiz Shaw II confessed to strangling his maid, Delia Holland, to death on April 7, 1964, a crime for which he never stood trial. He was committed instead to McLean Hospital, where he lived at Upham Memorial Hall for 23 years before being transferred to a nursing home somewhere on the North Shore, where he died circa 1987.^[24]

Death and legacy

As the Gilded Age gave way to the Progressive Era and eventually the Great Depression, the Shaw fortune collapsed. RGS II died in 1930, and the vacant and decaying Shaw estate in Newton was sold in 1939 to Dr. William Fitts Carlson. Carlson used the property as the new campus for Mount Ida Junior College. Adjoining tracts of land were converted into the Wells Avenue office park in the 1970s, and the Charles River Footpath (since renamed the Helen Heyn Riverway) in the 1990s.^[25]

In popular culture

Artist R.G. Harper Pennington (1854 – 1920) in one of his paintings depicted a nude RGS II as the character "Little Billee" from the bohemian novel Trilby (1894) by George du Maurier. This painting hung in the bedroom of Henry Symes Lehr, the homosexual husband of Elizabeth Wharton Drexel.^[26][27]

In a 1982 episode of Masterpiece Theatre that chronicled the life of Nancy Astor, Pierce Brosnan portrayed RGS II as a profligate and promiscuous gambler whom Nancy continued to love even after her marriage to Waldorf Astor.^[28] For this performance, Brosnan was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor in 1985.^[29]

References

External links

• City of Newton Massachusetts Atlas (1886): Section V, Ward 5. The location of the tract of land purchased by Robert Gould Shaw II in 1903 (property owned by William Sumner Appleton) is clearly visible on this 1886 map of Newton, Massachusetts.

Persondata
Name	Shaw, Robert Gould II
Alternative names
Short description	landowner and socialite
Date of birth	June 16, 1872
Place of birth	Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Date of death	March 29, 1930
Place of death	Newton, Massachusetts, United States