Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/376

 served in Stowe MS. 200 and Addit. MSS. 28569 and 32680.



SAVILE, GEORGE (1726–1784), politician, was born at Savile House, Leicester Fields, on the site of which the Empire Theatre now stands, on 18 July 1726. He was the only son of Sir George Savile, bart., F.R.S., of Rufford, Nottinghamshire, M.P. for Yorkshire in George II's first parliament, by his wife Mary, only daughter of John Pratt of Dublin, deputy vice-treasurer of Ireland. He was educated at home under the care of a private tutor, and on 16 Sept. 1743 succeeded his father as the eighth baronet. At the outbreak of the rebellion in 1745 he was given the commission of captain, and he raised his company of fifty men in Yorkshire in three or four days. In the following year he went to Queens' College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. and LL.D. in 1749. At a by-election in January 1759 he was returned to the House of Commons for Yorkshire, and he continued to represent that county during the whole of his parliamentary career. The Duke of Newcastle in October 1761 appears to have been anxious to place Savile in office (Grenville Papers, 1852–3, i. 393–4; Bedford Correspondence, 1842–6, iii. 67). In the session of 1763–4 he took part in the discussion of Wilkes's case, and joined in the condemnation of general warrants. Pitt during his interview with the king in June 1765 named Savile for the post of secretary at war (, Memoirs of the Reign of George III, 1894, ii. 132). He was invited to take part in the Rockingham administration, which was formed after the failure of the negotiations between the king and Pitt, but he declined the offer, alleging that he could better assert his privileges and serve his friends as an independent member of parliament (, Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham, 1852, i. 227). Though he voted for the repeal of the Stamp Act, he seems to have warned the colonists that they might go too far in their demands (Grenville Papers, iv. 510–13 n.). On 17 Feb. 1768 he moved for leave to bring in his Nullum Tempus Bill, for securing the land of a subject at any time after sixty years' possession from any dormant pretension of the crown [see, first ], but was defeated by 134 votes to 114 (Parl. Hist. xvi. 405–14). In the first session of the new parliament Savile reintroduced the bill (, Debates of the House of Commons, 1841, i. 50–1, 52), which, after amendment, passed through both houses and became law (9 Geo. III, cap. 16). On