A blue plaque located on Ramsey Villas, Queens Road, Beeston. The former home of Dr Brian Duncan 'BD' Shaw MM, a chemistry lecturer at the University of Nottingham, widely known for his demonstrations on explosives.
The plaque reads:
Lt Colonel
DR BRIAN DUNCAN
'BD' SHAW MM
1898-1999
Organic chemist, popular
lecturer on explosives,
distinguished marksman
and war hero
lived here."Popularly known as ‘BD’ he was renowned locally and internationally for his noisy and hair-raising demonstration lectures on explosives. These started in 1930 at Nottingham University College, when, as a lecturer, Shaw was asked to improve the attendance at the Student Chemical and Physical Society meetings. By 1990, he had given this lively lecture over 1,600 times, including for BBC TV. When he finally left his Beeston home, the bomb squad was called to check it for safety!
BD was a skilled marksman and fought in both World Wars, reaching the rank of Lt. Colonel. In WW1 he fought at the Somme, Cambrai and Passchendaele and received the Military Medal for bravery near Cambrai in 1917. During WW2, in command of the 1/5th Battalion Sherwood Foresters, he was left behind after the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940, was taken prisoner, escaped, but was recaptured. After his release in 1945 he returned to the University, retaining a military role as CO of the University Officer Training Corps. He was a frequent competitor at Bisley, winning many shooting trophies over the years. He died aged 101, not quite achieving his ambition to span three centuries."
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"Shaw was born in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, the fourth and youngest child of Samuel Shaw and Lydia Emma Shaw, his brothers and sisters being named Lydia Emma, Mabel and Clarence Gordon. His father was a brick manufacturer and his mother had been working as a teacher.
He started working at Boots the Chemist in 1914 as an apprentice pharmacist.
In May 1916, he married to his first wife, Margaret Elsie Wheldon. After her death, in 1990, he would marry to Alice Maud on 5 June of the same year, who, in turn, would die in 1998, a year before Shaw died.
He fought on the battles of Somme, Cambrai and Passchendaele, during the First World War.
In the Second World War, at the Fall of France, on June 10, 1940, he was cut off in Normandy by German tanks, and was separated from the battalion he was with. After that, he got a bike and spent ten weeks hiding from the Nazis, while trying to reach Spain, eventually cycling 300 miles (480 kilometres). Near Poitiers, a French gendarme stopped him because the bicycle lacked a plaque used for annual tax, and phoned the Germans, who made him prisoner. He was sent to Germany and spent the rest of the war in five POW camps, mainly at Spangenburg bei Kassel.
He published several articles on pyridines, maninly in the Journal of the Chemical Society.
After his retirement in 1965, he continued giving lectures and worked as an expert witness in several court cases, such as the defence of the Angry Brigade.
A blue plaque was installed on 16 November 2012 at his home. As a part of the Periodic table of videos, Prof. Martyn Poliakoff and Brady Haran filmed the event.
The Shaw Medal -
In 1988, the University of Nottingham created a medal in his honour called the Shaw Medal. BD Shaw himself was the first recipient of this prize."
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