Mrs Bernard Shaw
GBS was a Married Man,Surprisingly
George Bernard Shaw was forty when he met the unmarried Irishwoman of independent means, Charlotte Payne-Townshend. They met through mutual socialist friends Sidney and Beatrice Webb, who saw the value of this socially-aware but wealthy woman as a benefactor. Having met him in 1896, and it was Charlotte who made the running in the courtship, eventually proposed, and even supplied the ring.
As revealed by American academic Sally Peters in 'Shaw-The Ascent of the Superman', GBS was a man of unconventional sexuality - ascetic and narcissistic by his own admission - who hesitated in marrying Charlotte (or anyone else), despite several famous flirtations. There were many ladyfriends in his life, including the actresses Ellen Terry and Mrs Patrick Campbell. But Shaw had decided on a celibate life. Charlotte pursued him. Shaw mock-complained to friends that she would turn up often at his lectures, undeterred by his "denunciations of the idle rich".
Reluctant commitment
Charlotte set about making herself useful to him in both secretarial and in nursing roles, for Shaw was often ill, as well as being accident-prone. Shaw, afaid to be viewed as a gold-digger, avoided committing to marriage until June 1898, when the following tongue-in-cheek notice appeared in 'The Star' newspaper: "As a lady and a gentleman were out driving in Charlotte Street, Covent Garden yesterday, heavy shower drove them to take shelter in the office of the Superintendent Registrar there, and in the confusion of the moment he married them... "
The marriage, Shaw made clear, was never consummated. This was apparently as much Charlotte's wish as Shaw's, as she wanted to be sure of not conceiving at her age (almost 40 by that time). However, 'The Ascent of the Superman' contains disappointingly little testimony from Charlotte herself. Ms Peters posits that Shaw was an abstinent homosexual who married 'for form' and for companionship.
The couple went on to live together for many years, chiefly in a former rectory the Hertfordshire countryshire at the tiny village of Ayot St Lawrence. Their house, Shaw's Corner, is now a National Trust property, open to the public. The Trust's notes reveal that the Shaws had been staying in the area, "in the agonies of house-hunting", when, in the churchyard of the New Church, they came across a tombstone dedicated to one Mary Ann South. "Born 1825. Died 1895. Her time was short", it read. The Shaws decided that if 70 years was considered short thereabouts, it would be a good place to settle.
During the early 1920s, Charlotte had a frequent and intimate correspondence with TE Lawrence (of Arabia), begun when he was seeking to have his book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom polished and published. Charlotte's letters to Lawrence revealed much about her that Shaw had never known, he later confessed.
Last years
In England, as well as their Hertfordshire house they kept a flat in London. In old age, Charlotte suffered from the bone disease, osteitis deformans, and died at the flat in 1943. After her death, Shaw was surprised at how much he missed her.
Her husband died in 1950, at the age of 94, having suffered a fall while indulging in his favoured form of exercise - gardening. Shaw was cremated, and, at his request, his ashes were mingled with Charlotte's and strewn in their Hertfordshire garden.
Sources:
Sally Peters - Shaw: The Ascent of The Superman, Yale University Press 1996.
Shaw's Corner (National Trust)
he Shaws on Honeymoon
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