Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/361

 was famous among the English of the province for his exploits against the Irish towards the close of the fifteenth century. For the settlers it was a time of especial distress, as the civil war in England precluded much aid being sent from that country. Savage was the only military leader in whom the English reposed any confidence, and in a petition addressed to the king, probably between 1482 and 1494, they prayed him to send succour ‘to his faithfull servant and true liegeman, Janico Savage’ (Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, v. 132).

In 1515 Sir Roland Savage is mentioned in a memorial on the state of Ireland and a plan for its reformation (State Papers of Henry VIII) as ‘one of the English great rebels’ who undertook wars on their own authority. Perhaps, in consequence of this, Gerald Fitzgerald, ninth earl of Kildare [q. v.], was able to revive an old claim and to deprive Savage of Lecale. Savage died soon after, in 1519, leaving a son Raymond, who duly succeeded to Lecale in 1536 (Annals of Loch Cé, Rolls Ser. p. 229; Cal. Irish State Papers, Carew MSS., 1515–71, p. 94). James, surnamed Macjaniake, was also probably his son.

[G. F. A[rmstrong]'s Savages of the Ards, pp. 158–69.]

 SAVAGE, SAMUEL MORTON (1721–1791), dissenting tutor, was born in London on 19 July 1721. His grandfather, John Savage, was pastor of the seventh-day baptist church, Mill Yard, Goodman's Fields. Savage believed himself to be the lineal descendant and heir male of John Savage, second earl Rivers (d. 1654). He was related to Hugh Boulter [q. v.], archbishop of Armagh; hence his friends expected him to seek a career in the church. He first thought of medicine, and spent a year or two with his Uncle Toulmin, an apothecary, in Old Gravel Lane, Wapping. Through the influence of Isaac Watts he entered the Fund Academy, under John Eames [q. v.] In 1744, while still a pupil, he was made assistant tutor in natural science and classics by the trustees of William Coward [q. v.], a post which he retained till the reconstruction of the academy in 1762; from the time of his marriage (1752) the lectures were delivered at his house in Wellclose Square.

Meanwhile, in December 1747, Savage became assistant minister at Duke's Place, Bury Street, St. Mary Axe, to the independent congregation of which Watts had been pastor. He was ordained there as co-pastor to Samuel Price in 1753, and became sole pastor on 2 Jan. 1757. In addition he held the office of afternoon preacher (1759–1766) and Thursday lecturer (1760–7) to the presbyterian congregation in Hanover Street under Jabez Earle, D.D. [q. v.] He was Friday lecturer (1761–90) at Little St. Helen's, and afternoon preacher (1769–75) at Clapham.

On the death of David Jennings, D.D. [q. v.], the Coward trustees removed the academy to a house in Hoxton Square, formerly the residence of Daniel Williams [q. v.], founder of the well-known library. Savage was placed in 1762 in the divinity chair, his colleagues in other branches being Andrew Kippis, D.D. [q. v.], and Abraham Rees, D.D. [q. v.] The experiment illustrates the transitional condition of the old liberal dissent. Savage was a Calvinist, Rees an Arian, Kippis a Socinian. They worked harmoniously together; but the academy was not viewed with much favour. Kippis resigned in 1784. Savage, who had been made B.D. by King's College, Aberdeen, on 28 April 1764, and D.D. by Marischal College, Aberdeen, in November 1767, held on till midsummer 1785, when the Hoxton academy was dissolved.

Like Jennings, Savage, though orthodox, was a non-subscriber; he was one of the originators of the appeal to parliament in 1772 which resulted in the amendment (1779) of the Toleration Act, substituting a declaration of adhesion to the scriptures in place of a subscription to the doctrinal part of the Anglican articles. He resigned his congregation at Christmas 1787; his ministry, though prolonged and solid, had not been popular. A bookish man, he avoided society, and buried himself in his ample library. He died on 21 Feb. 1791 of a contraction of the œsophagus; unable to take food, he was starved to a skeleton. He was buried in Bunhill Fields, where there is a tombstone to his memory. He married first, in 1752, the only daughter (d. 1763) of George Houlme, stockbroker, of Hoxton Square; secondly, in 1770, Hannah Wilkin, who survived him. By his first marriage he left two daughters. He published eight single sermons (1757–82), including ordination discourses for William Ford (1757) and Samuel Wilton (1766), and funeral discourses for David Jennings (1762) and Samuel Wilton (1778). A posthumous volume of ‘Sermons,’ 1796, 8vo, was edited, with life, by Joshua Toulmin, D.D. He has been confused with Samuel Savage, dissenting minister at Edmonton, who died in retirement before 1766.

[Gent. Mag. February 1791, p. 191; Funeral Oration by Thomas Towle, 1791; Life by Toulmin, 1796 (also, somewhat abridged, in 