Robert Gould Shaw III was an American-born English socialite.
Background
He was the only son of Viscountess Nancy Witcher Langhorne and her first husband landowner/socialite Robert Gould Shaw II, who was a son of investor Quincy Adams Shaw and first cousin of Civil War Union casualty Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.
Career
Shaw"s birth father had a limited role in his life while he had a close, if occasionally difficult, relationship to his mother. Shaw III was educated at Shrewsbury School. He briefly served in the Life Guards but his increasing alcoholism caused difficulty.
He had long had suicidal tendencies and his life mostly went adrift from an early point.
In 1931, he was imprisoned for six months for homosexual offences. His alcoholism, the Profumo affair, his mother"s death, and the death of his half-brother Viscount William Waldorf Astor II may have increased his suicidal tendencies.
On July 10, 1970 he committed suicide, aged 71. He is buried in the estate chapel at Cliveden.
John Singer Sargent did a 1923 charcoal portrait of Shaw III in his military uniform.