Mabel Shaw (1898-1991) was born in the Cambridge village of Fen Drayton.  Mabel had a fascinating life, she was a talented musician and after the First World War secured a job as a music and elocution teacher at Manchester School for Girls. Whilst working there she met Jane Saunders who taught art at the school. Jane Saunders and another art teacher called Hannah Ritchie lived together in Manchester during the mid-1920s. They were close friends of the famous artist Frances Hodgkins. At the time Hodgkins was a struggling and was given lodgings and financial help by Saunders and Ritchie (who appear together as the subjects of one of Hodgkins’ most famous paintings).

Frances Hodgkins and Jane Saunders are known to have had a relationship, which had ended by 1929 when Saunders began a new relationship with Mabel Shaw. Eventually Saunders and Shaw left Manchester to settle down together in Wiltshire. Mabel subsequently worked as a freelance teacher of music and elocution at numerous other schools.

Jane Saunders and Mabel Shaw lived happily together for the rest of their lives. They accumulated a significant collection of paintings by Frances Hodgkins, including several of her best known works that are now hanging in major galleries around the world, such as the Tate.

In 2013 I acquired, though an online auction website, a substantial and fascinating archive relating to Mabel. Images and documents from the collection are currently being digitised and will appear here soon (November 2018).