Richard Savory

For a long time it was believed that Charles Savory, born 1784, was the father of John Savory (born 1801) and Thomas Field Savory (Junior)(born 1812). However, this assumption always seemed suspect because it implied that Charles was only 16 years of age when his first son, John, was born in 1801. Although the year in which John was born was known, the exact place and date, which would have helped identify his parents, were not known.

John made matters worse by apparently being deliberately misleading on the subject. In the 1841 census return he stated he was not born in Middlesex; in the 1851 return he gave his place of birth as St Andrew Holborn, London; in 1861 he gave it as Bloomsbury and in 1871 as Cowley.

From a letter written by a certain Louisa Lickfold to Arthur Ledsam Savory in 1894 it was known that the mother of Thomas Field Savory (junior) was named Sarah. The letter reads as follows:

“An old friend of the late Mrs Sarah Savory, widow, of the brother of the late Thomas Savory Senr of Bond Street, I have a portrait in oil of my old Friend, also one of her son, the later Mr T. Savory Junr and have a silver fork which he used at school. If any of the Family care to have these, I should be pleased to give them, as I am now very advanced in years and would like to feel that the family have them.”

It was not until 1981 that the first name of John’s father came to light. It was Richard and thus been recorded by Thomas Field (junior) on this marriage certificate when he married for the second time in 1857. The marriage of Richard and Sarah (daughter of Robert and Sarah Hearn) was traced to St Giles in the Field on 11 January 1801. Also traced was the baptism of their oldest son, John, which took place at the Church of St Andrew Holborn on 8 February 1801. It is clear that John was born out of wedlock in 1800, and this, no doubt, is the reason why he felt it necessary to hide his place of birth. John’s death certificate from 3rd October 1871, states his age as 71. Which implies he must have been born in 1800, before his parents’ marriage.

Little is known about Richard Savory. When Thomas Field (junior) was apprenticed to his uncle in 1827 he was described as the son of the ‘late Richard Savory, gentleman, of Portsmouth’. He was similarly described as a ‘gentleman’ on his wife’s death certificate. However, on Thomas Field’s (junior) marriage certificate in 1857, his father is described as ‘soldier’.

In 2025, Thomas Field Savory (Junior’s) baptism registry, of 1813, was found, it states his father Richard was a Serjeant in the 12th Light Dragoons.