Life

He was son of the Rev. Henry Savage. He matriculated as a pensioner on 6 October 1817 at Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

, obtaining a scholarship in 1822, and graduating B.A. in the autumn of 1824. On leaving the university he held for some time in Dublin a position under the Irish government.

Savage was in 1856 appointed editor of The Examiner

Examiner

The Examiner was a weekly paper founded by Leigh and John Hunt in 1808. For the first fifty years it was a leading intellectual journal expounding radical principles, but from 1865 it repeatedly changed hands and political allegiance, resulting in a rapid decline in readership and loss of...

in succession to John Forster, and moved to London. He remained editor for around three years. He died at Torquay

Torquay

Torquay is a town in the unitary authority area of Torbay and ceremonial county of Devon, England. It lies south of Exeter along the A380 on the north of Torbay, north-east of Plymouth and adjoins the neighbouring town of Paignton on the west of the bay. Torquay’s population of 63,998 during the...

, after a prolonged illness, on 1 May 1872.

Works

His first novel ‘The Falcon Family, or Young Ireland,’ appeared in 1845, at the moment when the physical force party were just beginning to secede from the Repeal Association

Repeal Association

The Repeal Association was an Irish mass membership political movement set up by Daniel O'Connell to campaign for a repeal of the Act of Union of 1800 between Great Britain and Ireland....

. It was a caustic attack on the seceders. His second work, ‘The Bachelor of the Albany,’ which was published in 1847, proved to be his best known. In 1849 Savage brought out a three-volume novel, called ‘My Uncle the Curate,’ and in 1852 another entitled ‘Reuben Medlicott, or the Coming Man.’ His fifth story was a novelette, called ‘Clover Cottage, or I can't get in,’ which, dramatised by Tom Taylor

Tom Taylor

Tom Taylor was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine...

 under the title of ‘Nine Points of the Law,’ as a comedietta in one act, was first performed at the Olympic on 11 April 1859, with Mrs. Stirling and Addison in the two chief parts.

In 1855 he edited, in two volumes with notes and a preface, Richard Lalor Sheil

Richard Lalor Sheil

Richard Lalor Sheil , Irish politician, writer and orator, was born at Drumdowney, Slieverue, County Kilkenny, Ireland...

's ‘Sketches, Legal and Political,’ which had appeared as a serial in the New Monthly Magazine, under the editorship of Thomas Campbell. In 1870 he brought out his sixth and last novel, entitled ‘The Woman of Business, or the Lady and the Lawyer.’

Family

He was twice married. By his first wife, Olivia, a niece of Lady Morgan, to whom the novelist dedicated his ‘Bachelor of the Albany,’ he had an only son, who died in youth. By his second wife, a daughter of Thomas Hutton of Dublin, he had no children.