SHAW, Robert Barkley. Upper Clapton, London 12.7.1839 — Mandalay, Burma 15.6.1879. British Traveller in Central Asia, then Civil Servant in Burma. Son of Robert Grant Shaw and Martha Barkley. “Educated at Marlborough and Trinity College, Cambridge, became a tea-planter in Kangra. Travelled in 1868 as a merchant to Eastern Turkestan, reaching Yarkand and Kashgar, Jan. 1869, well treated by Yakub Beg. Went again with Sir T. D. Forsyth to Yarkand in 1870. Received the Royal Geographical Society’s medal in 1872. British Joint Commissioner in Ladak. Again at Yarkand, in 1875, with Forsyth’s treaty of 1874. Came to England in charge of the Yarkand Envoy. Resident at Mandalay, then in Upper Burma, in 1878, died there.” Died of rheumatic fever. Unmarried.

Publications: A Visit to High Tartary, Yârkand and Kâshghar. 16+486 p. L. 1871.

– A Sketch of the Turki Language as spoken in Eastern Turkestan. 109+21 p. Lahore 1875.

– The Ghalchah Languages (Wakhi and Sarikoli). 140 p. Calcutta 1876  (= “On the Ghalchah Languages (Wakhí and Sariḳolí)”, JASB 45:1, 1876, 139-278).

– “On the Shighni (Ghalchah) Dialect”, JASB 46:1, 1877, 97-126; “Stray Arians in Tibet”, JASB 47, 1878, 26-62 (grammars and vocabularies of Brōkpā dialects of Ḍāh-Hanū and Drās); two accounts on Central Asian Turkish.

– Edited by Ney Elias: The history of the Khôjas of Eastern-Turkistân: summarised from the Tazkira-i-Khâjagân of Muḥammad Ṣādiq Kâshgharî. 6+67 p. Calcutta 1897.

Sources: Buckland, Dictionary; S.W[heeler], D.N.B. 51, 1897, 443f.; Wikipedia.