US Congressman. He was born one of three children (he also had two sisters, Maria and Claire) to Bernard A. Shanley and Rose E. Kelly Shanley in North Haven, Connecticut, and was educated at local common public schools before entering and graduating from the distinguished military Battery Commander School in Fort Sill, Arkansas, in 1917. During World War I, he served with the rank of Lieutenant in the Forty-Fifth Field Artillery of the United States Army from 1917 to 1918. Following the war and his military service he continued his education at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and following his graduation from there in 1920, he became a teacher and taught mathematics at Carlton Academy in Summit, New Jersey, from 1920 to 1921, and was an educational and athletic adviser of the New Haven Boys Club in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1926 to 1928, and he continued to teach mathematics in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1921 to 1934. During this time he returned to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, to study law. He graduated from the university's law department in 1928 and was admitted to the bar that same year. He then commenced to practicing law in New Haven, Connecticut. He married Mildred M. Fleming and the couple had two children (James Andrew born in 1936 and Mary Louise born in 1937). During this time he also served in military areas including as Captain in the Artillery Reserves from 1923 to 1935, Adjutant in the Connecticut National Guard from 1929 to 1935, and as a Major on the Staff of Connecticut Governor Wilbur Lucius Cross from 1931 to 1935. During World War II, he was a Lecturer at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. from 1941 to 1945. He then decided to run for a seat in the United States Congress and was elected. A Democrat, he then served Connecticut's 3rd District (Seventy-Fourth and to the three succeeding Congresses) in the United States House of Representatives from 1935 to 1943. While serving in the United States Congress he identified himself with much of the New Deal Program and he liked being called a liberal. He was particularly active in the fight for repeal of the Neutrality act and was an exponent of effective international law. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Seventy-Eighth Congress in 1942. After his term in the United States Congress expired on January 3, 1943, he was succeeded in office by United States Representative Ranulf Compton. He then worked as receiver for the Hartford Empire Company in Hartford, Connecticut, from 1942 to 1946, before resuming his practice of law shortly thereafter. He returned to public service when he was elected as a Judge of the Probate for the towns of New Haven, East Haven, North Haven, Orange, and Woodbridge, Connecticut, and served in that position from November 5, 1949, until his death in office on April 4, 1965. He was to retire from that position in 1966 but he took ill and he died at the Grace-New Haven Hospital at the age of 69. His funeral was held at the Church of the Assumption in Woodbridge, Connecticut, and he was buried in the St. Lawrence Cemetery in West Haven, Connecticut. He was remembered by colleagues as a "keenly, intelligent, alert, insightful and incisive man."