George Bernard Shaw

Shaw in 1936

Monday 2^nd November 2015 sees the 65^th anniversary of the death of Irish playwright and literary critic, George Bernard Shaw.

Best remembered for Pygmalion (the story of which became the musical My Fair Lady) and Major Barbara, he penned in excess of 60 plays, ranging from purely satirical works to historical allegory pieces. He became arguably, the most important English language playwright since the 17^th Century.

Born in Dublin in 1856, he won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature along with an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (Pygmalion) 13 years later. He refused all other offers of awards including that of a Knighthood.

He was also one of the founders of the London School of Economics in 1895 when he and fellow Fabian Society members Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb and Graham Wallas set up the institution for what they considered to be the “betterment of society” (the Fabian Society itself was set up by the Webbs, HG Wells and GBS, being a group promoting non-Marxist evolutionary socialism).

Frontage of Shaw's Corner

He died at the grand age of 94 of renal failure, brought about from injuries received after falling when attempting to prune a tree. 

His home, now called Shaw's Corner in the small village of Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire, close to Harpenden and Welwyn Garden City, is now a National Trust property and well worth a visit.