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 I am astonished that this wonderful man doesn't seem to get a mention on these pages.

Does nobody remember him?

He was, amongst many other things, a chemistry lecturer at Nottingham University but most well known to most people as an expert on explosives. He used to tour the country with his lectures - which were always the most entertaining you could possibly imagine with a different explosion every couple of minutes.

I saw his lectures several times at the Albert Hall and at the University. They were always different but they all had plenty of entertainment, amusement and learning. The last time I saw him was at the University 1970ish when he was a few minutes late for his lecture to student teachers as he had been in court all day defending the "Angry Brigade" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Angry_Brigade

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Duncan_Shaw

My "A" level chemistry lecturer at NDTC (Nottingham & District Technical College - the pompous building on Burton St) was a Mrs Shaw. She was about the same vintage as the colonel. I wondered if they were husband & wife.

 

There is (apparently) a blue plaque dedicated to him at his house 185 Queens Road, Beeston.

 

Edit: Of course, in these days of elf & safety, even the popping of a balloon would probably fall foul of the regulations. I shudder to think what the reaction to the Colonel's demonstrations would induce. I recall a lecture at the Albert Hall where one particularly loud bang made some of the organ pipes resonate and clouds of dust were produced.

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5 hours ago, jonab said:

There is (apparently) a blue plaque dedicated to him at his house 185 Queens Road, Beeston.

 

I'll bet nobody driving past there has ever noticed it. Unfortunately I can't zoom in clearly enough with Streetview. No doubt now occupied by a number of students.

nBb9IVf.jpg

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Back in the late 80s he sent his 'Sorcerers Apprentice' other wise known as assistant to collect 2 pound of black powder from our gun shop in Arnold.

 

Though he had the right paperwork he knew little about black powder shooting which made me question what he wanted the stuff for. He explained all about the demo's with one coming up that week at the university. He got his 2lb of powder and I got three tickets for the partners and his personal invite.

 

On arrival we were met at the door and introduced to the Prof then taken to our seats the next two hours was havoc, explosions, fires etc.

One experiment was cotton wool soaked in liquid oxygen and then lit, four students with fire extinguishers tried to put it out but failed.

 

The high light of the night for me was when he took his original .577 Enfield black powder rifle and loaded it with 70 grains of fine powder and an ordinary candle. At a distance of about 10 feet was his target a 3" thick wooden plank with a house brick behind all contained in 3 sided armoured glass box, big bang, big flash, candle through the plank and house brick destroyed.

 

And I had forgotten all about that until this post Thanks Jonab

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I'd never heard of him before but there is this brief article about his war exploits in 1941 after he escaped  from the Germans and rode 300 miles towards unoccupied France on a bicycle before being captured by a Gendarme . He sounds like an all action hero ! From the Evening Post 01/02/1941.

 

41891460332_dfc80ea222_b.jpg

 

 

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Another of the Colonel's demonstrations was the mixing of white phosphorus and potassium chlorate.

Anyone with a knowledge of chemistry will know this is an extraordinarily dangerous combination and liable to explode whilst being mixed - without any other external influences.

The safe way to do this mixing was to dissolve the phosphorus in a solvent (I'm not revealing the solvent for safety reasons) and then pour this solution over the potassium chlorate. Shaw would prepare a few of these and place them around his demonstration desk. There were only a few grams in each and number he prepared varied and depended on his audience. I went to one lecture designed for trainee teachers where he made six.

With his phosphorus/pot chlorate trays prepared he then carried on with his lecture, seemingly forgetting about them.

At random intervals during the lecture, one of these things would explode extremely loudly and with huge volumes of white smoke. Shaw would just carry on with his lecture as though nothing had happened. Quite often (and near the end of the performance) there would be one tray that didn't detonate. He would then approach this with a long metal bar and give it a very light touch. As expected, the mixture exploded, more loudly and with more smoke than the others and the metal bar ended up with a big bend in it. I found out later that this was a "special" item, larger than the others so it would take longer for the solvent to evaporate and thus remain "stable" for most of the duration of the lecture so he could have a particularly spectacular finale. As far as I was concerned, the whole lecture, and every one I went to, was spectacular.

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This photo may be more how you remember him from the Coventry Evening Telegraph June 26th 1975.

 

40139151150_fa8914eccd_b.jpg

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The colonel only revealed his methods to a few, selected, people. It was at the lecture for trainee teachers that I found out the secret of the random explosions. Some more were also revealed such as the singing glass tube in which he had a 4 or 5-inch diameter 10-foot long glass tube with a cork in both ends. He would take the cork from one end and apply a light to it. A disk-like flame appeared which slowly moved along the tube making a sort of singing noise. As the flame progressed it accelerated and the noise became increasingly loud until, in the end, it was almost deafening.

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I attended one of the amazing Colonel Shaw's spectacular lectures around 1970.

I was 20 at the time and was working as an analytical chemist in Boots Quality Laboratories in D10 at the Beeston site. Someone in the lab. said he was presenting his explosives lecture at Nottingham University and it was not to be missed so me and a couple of lab mates went off to see it. I think it was in the evening and I've never forgotten it.

He produced several very loud explosions simply by boiling water in small sealed tubes.

I also recall his bent iron bar finale and him firing a tallow candle through several thicknesses of plywood.

I left Boots in 1972 to complete my chemistry studies at Salford Uni. and became a Chartered Chemist shortly afterwards. I'm retired now but still take a keen interest in the subject.

There's more about Colonel Shaw here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/b.d.shaw.centenary/openpage.html

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My dad told of the candle fired through a plank of wood NBL. I didn't believe him and thought he was making it up......    Sorry dad

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Brew, there was often a brick positioned behind the wooden plank to act as a shock absorber/buffer - that usually ended up in pieces as well.

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When you consider this was the pattern of rifle favoured in the American civil war and you see the power of it there in front of you it makes you wonder what damage it did to flesh and bone when loaded with a 520 grain soft lead bullet.

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