Celebrating the Centenary of Shaw's Nobel Prize
The Shaw Society Centenary Events​ and Projects​​​
​​2026 is a very special year for our Charity as we celebrate our 85th Birthday and the centenary of Bernard's Shaw's Nobel Prize. Although Shaw won the Nobel Prize for literature for 1925, However the prize was not announced till the following year in 1926.​
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The Shaw Society has many events planned for the centenary year which we hope you will enjoy. On July 10-12 the Inaugural London Shaw Festival will be held at the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith. and the annual Birthday Play 25-25July at Shaw's Corner - National Trust in Ayot St Lawrence will be 'Candida', one of Shaw's most popular plays performed by Rumpus Theatre Company.. Other events include: a joint performance Shaw's play 'Dark Lady of the Sonnets' and composer Philip Hagemann's opera based on Shaw's work at "The Shakespeare in Music Festival' in Stratford upon Avon on 25th April. Alex Leighton and Helen Tierney are leading two London walks exploring places associated with GBS - 'Mr Shaw goes to Hampstead' on Sunday May 3rd and our annual 'Shaw Crawl' round Bloomsbury on Bank Holiday Sunday August 30th. There will be many other events planned culminating in 2027 with International Shaw Conference at the The London School of Economics with the International Shaw Society. Shaw and his wife Charlotte were founders of the LSE and in the early years of their marriage lived in a flat above the original LSE site.
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We hope as many of you as possible will join us as members in this special centenary year to enjoy the many performances, play readings. walks , talks and outings that the Society holds or attends. We hope this website allows you to explore Bernard Shaw and gives you a flavour of how The Shaw Society celebrate his life and work.
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For this special year we have chosen to support and major new project at Shaw's home Shaw's Corner which he bequeathed to the National Trust. Shaw's Corner National Trust are creating a new permanent exhibition for Shaw's collection of 15,000 photographic prints and negatives. Our Vice-President Dame Siân Phillips hopes that you will join us to support this important project. ​
Best wishes
Maureen Clark Darby
Chair of The Shaw Society
Nobel Centenary Fundraising Project
George Bernard Shaw Photographic Collection Exhibition
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To celebrate this very special anniversary The Shaw Society are supporting an exciting new project by the National Trust to preserve and display Shaw's extensive photography collection at his home Shaw's Corner in Ayot St Lawrence in Hertfordshire. The collection is a window into Shaw's work, friendships and travels around the globe. Many of the photographs will not have been on public display before and the project will preserve the photographs, slides and negatives for future generations. Our Vice-President Dame Siân Phillips has recorded a message to invite you to help our appeal for donations to preserve this unique collection and to create new permanent exhibition.
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A message from Dame Siân Phillips
Vice-President of The Shaw Society
Special Events 2026
Shaw's Corner National Trust
Ayot St Lawrence​
Hertfordshire
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Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was, in the early Twentieth Century, one of the most famous people in the world. Born and raised in Dublin, he lived his entire adult life from the age of 20 in Britain. He was the first person to be awarded both the Nobel Prize for Literature (in 1925 after writing St Joan, his play about Joan of Arc and for which the Society will be celebrating the centenary this summer) and an Oscar (which he received in 1938 for Best Original Screenplay for adapting his comedy Pygmalion). He and his wife Charlotte were crucial to the development of a string of institutions which are still important today: the Fabian Society, the London School of Economics, and RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts). He was a socialist, vegetarian and feminist long before those causes were fashionable. Remembered chiefly for his 60 groundbreaking plays, which tackle major political and social topics, including class, poverty and warfare, he remains today a public intellectual with a global reputation.​
The Shaw Society was set up in Shaw’s lifetime on his 85th birthday, 26 July 1941. He endorsed it in his usual irascible style, replying ‘go ahead but don’t bother me about it’ - at the same time taking a great interest in its activities. He thought the Society would last no more than four years. It has been the great pleasure of the members to see him wrong. Now in its 74th year, the Shaw Society today provides opportunities to study and enjoy the works of George Bernard Shaw or ‘GBS’ as he was widely known, and his contemporaries through public performances, readings, films, talks, articles in the press and the Society’s bi-annual journal The Shavian.
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In September 2022, the Shaw Society registered as a charity. It endeavours to keep Shaw’s work alive and on stage; bring his work to wider audiences; raise money to support young actors and develop academic research related to Shaw. We run a wide programme of activities that are open to all members, including a monthly play-reading workshop featuring plays by Shaw and his contemporaries, led by a drama tutor and followed by a convivial light supper. The Society also organises regular literary walks, including the annual ‘Shaw Crawl’, around the places Shaw loved in London, usually pausing for refreshments at a very un-Shavian pub or bar (Shaw himself being tee-total), as well as screenings of plays and films, theatre visits around the UK, talks, presentations and lectures. ​​
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