Colonel Thomas Bradney Shaw-Hellier (1836–1910), 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, of The Wodehouse near Wombourne, Staffordshire, and of Villa San Giorgio (now Hotel Ashby) in Taormina, Sicily, was Director of the Royal Military School of Music. He was a gentleman farmer, described as a leading breeder of Jersey cattle.
Origins The family seat is The Wodehouse, an ancient manor house in Staffordshire. The estate has passed down within the family, or has been bequeathed to friends, for many generations, and has not been for sale. Thomas Shaw-Hellier was the grandson and direct heir of the Reverend Thomas Shaw, minister at St John's Church, Wolverhampton and perpetual curate of Claverley circa 1765–1810. Reverend Thomas Shaw was the adoptive heir of Sir Samuel Hellier (1737-1784), High Sheriff of Worcestershire, the only son and heir of Samuel Hellier (died 1751), who had acquired The Wodehouse before the 1720s. Sir Samuel displayed a passion for eclectic knowledge with a substantial library and an important collection of musical instruments. A condition of inheritance was that the recipient should change his name to that of his benefactor, and in 1786 Reverend Shaw became Shaw-Hellier. He lived at the Wodehouse with his wife Mary, worked at St. John's Wolverhampton and at Tipton, and died in 1812. His son James, manager of Netherton colliery, died in 1827; he had also been known to steward the races at nearby Penn Common. The family continued its close ties with St. John's Wolverhampton; in addition to Sir Samuel's endowment and his successor's work there, in 1820 a daughter of the house, Parthenia, married the minister. Sons of the house went into the ministry, including several successive generations named Thomas.
Sir Samuel Hellier (1737-1784) Sir Samuel Hellier (1737-1784) collected beautiful or unusual objects: a gold cane-handle depicting the intertwining of the emblems of several local families was bequeathed to the Ashmolean Museum. He spent a great deal of money on collecting a musical treasure trove of instruments and newly published works. He was particularly interested in Handel; indeed, the catalogue accompanying the National Portrait Gallery exhibition marking the tercentenary of the composer's birth calls Sir Samuel, and abolitionist Granville Sharp, two men of the late eighteenth century "who have left us solid evidence of the means by which they indulged their enthusiasm". He was also a "prominent figure at the Three Choirs Festival", one of the world's oldest classical choral music festivals. Sir Samuel Hellier endowed both the ancient Church of Benedict Biscop, Wombourne and the new St John's Church, Wolverhampton, which opened in 1760. He provided an organ for his parish church, and his correspondence with this organist regarding playing techniques has recently been rediscovered, and is cited approvingly. Sir Samuel's grandmother lived to be 99, and he survived not two years longer, dying in the autumn of 1784. He never married and left his property to his lifelong friend Rev. Thomas Shaw, minister at St John's Wolverhampton and perpetual curate of Claverley circa 1765–1810.
Career
Country pursuits He was a gentleman farmer, described as a leading breeder of Jersey cattle. For a period in the middle of the century Thomas Shaw-Hellier, being a keen huntsman, preferred the country seats of Packwood House and latterly Rodbaston Hall. He let The Wodehouse to tenants including Philip Stanhope, 1st Baron Weardale, the Liberal politician, pacifist, and philanthropist, and his wife Alexandra Tolstoy apparently lived for a time in the Wodehouse.
Musical career He made a career in military music, spending several years as commandant of the Royal Military School of Music at Kneller Hall, where a prize for composition—a gold-mounted baton—was named in his honour. He was responsible for the Musical Division of the Royal Military Exhibition at Chelsea in 1890. Over the five-month exhibition, he brought 74 military bands from all over the country to perform by the River Thames. A large collection of musical instruments, particularly wind instruments, was displayed, and a catalogue was issued the following year under his direction. He was also a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, donating a banner and co-organising the tercentenary celebrations at the beginning of the 20th century.
Military career His military career saw him rise to command the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards.
Patron of the Church Like his predecessor, he supported the established church, in his case commemorating the quincentenary of Winchester College by endowing Winchester Cathedral with altar and fittings. He is listed in The Charitable Ten Thousand.
Marriage In the words of one local historian who has documented the gentry families of the area, "The whole inter-marrying and single child families came to a sterile conclusion in 1898 when Thomas Bradney Shaw-Hellier married Harriet Bradney Marsh Evans". They were distant cousins; he was over, and she was almost, 60 years old: they had no children. The marriage was characterised as "disastrous, wild, brief" and his response was to leave England and set himself a new project in Sicily.
Life in Taormina, Sicily
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