A PIG OF A DEAL -

Captain Shaw, his wife Eliza and their children were early settlers in W.A. and in 1830 they were living in a riverside shack waiting patiently for their land grant to be approved. Captain Shaw and a friend were out hunting one day and bagged a pig that presumably had escaped into the bush at some point since settlement.

Shaw took an amount of the meat to Fremantle in order to sell it but he met another settler who was suffering from scurvy. The settler offered to swap the pork for some salted beef but Shaw, seeing the man's condition, declined the beef and gave the man his pork.

Mrs Shaw takes up the story:

"Mr. William Locke Brockman (whose family the Shaws had known in England) came to visit and brought with him Mr Lyon who said;

'Mr Shaw I have frequently heard of you. You, I believe, have a large family and have been in the colony a long time but have not yet got a grant.'

Shaw agreed that such was the case, at which Mr Lyon continued;

'I have had the pleasure, although unknown to yourself of seeing you before. Do you remember giving a person some fresh pork and would take nothing in return? I stood near enough to hear all that passed and am now delighted in my turn, to be able to render a service to so kindly a gentleman.

I have a grant of land which I cannot make use of. I have had money offered for it but you and your family shall have half of it. I will come over tomorrow and give you a letter to the Governor to that effect.'

All this seems fictitious but can be authenticated by Mr Brockman as well as by Mr Lyon's letters."

So the kind gift of some pork translated into a grant of land for Captain Shaw and his family.

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