Herbert Kenneth Airy Shaw (7 April 1902–1985) was a notable English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 botanist and classicist.

Airy Shaw was born at The Mount, Grange Road, Woodbridge, Suffolk

Woodbridge, Suffolk

Woodbridge is a town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. It is in the East of England, not far from the coast. It lies along the River Deben, with a population of about 7,480. The town is served by Woodbridge railway station on the Ipswich-Lowestoft East Suffolk Line. Woodbridge is twinned with...

 to a father serving as Second Master at the Woodbridge Grammar School and a mother descended from George Biddell Airy

George Biddell Airy

Sir George Biddell Airy PRS KCB was an English mathematician and astronomer, Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881...

, Astronomer Royal (1835-1881). In 1921 he entered Corpus Christi College

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Corpus Christi College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is notable as the only college founded by Cambridge townspeople: it was established in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary...

, Cambridge University, to read classics, but he switched to natural sciences, taking his degree in 1924 and finishing in 1925, then taking a position at Kew Gardens. He became an expert on tropical Asian botany and on entomology

Entomology

Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...

.

Selected works

• The Euphorbiaceae of Borneo, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1975. ISBN 9780112410997.
• The Euphorbiaceae of New Guinea, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1980. ISBN 9780112411468.