Julia Sophia Savory

Julia Savory married Professor Buckman after a somewhat difficult courtship, some details of which were recorded by her sister-in-law, Melita Savory, who was married to Charles Harley Savory, in her diary for 1857.

“3rd April: Mrs. Savory suddenly made an appearance in the morning in a great state of excitement, owing to Julia having partly engaged herself to Mr. Buckman.

6th April: … she is infatuated with the Professor and is quite ready to marry in haste and repent at leisure.

9th April: Julia is love sick to a violent degree and talks of nothing but her blighted hopes.

14th Oct: Another scene between Julia and her papa: again ending in Julia going to bed…Mrs Savory in tears all day long. Oh: dear me.

28th Oct: Mr. Savory in Town to meet Mrs. Blackmore who has had an interview with Mr. Buckman. Julia is really behaving scandalously.”

In the end Julia had her way, being married on 24th April 1858 in Burnham Church. The Buckmans had five children:

• Sydney Savory (b. 3rd April 1860, baptised 26th June 1860 at St George’s, Hanover Square and died 26th February 1929 aged 68 in Thame, Oxfordshire);
• Ada Hames (b. 23rd May 1861, baptised 29th June 1861 at St George’s Hanover Square on the same day as her cousin Ronald George Savory);
• Katherine (Katie) Julia (b.9th April 1863, baptised 27th June 1863 at St George’s Hanover Square);
• Minnie Georgina (b.1864 and baptised 2nd October 1864 in Bradford Abbas); and
• Percy Warner James (b. 31st October 1865, baptised 23rd January 1866 at St George’s, Hanover Square and died in 1948 in Tonbridge, Kent, aged 82).

Professor Buckman FRGS was born in 1816 at Cheltenham. From 1848-1863 he was professor of geology and botany at The Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester. James Buckman was very interested in archology and was largely responsible for the excavation of the Roman Villa near Cirencester. He retired in 1863 and then went to farm in Dorset near Bradford Abbas. Professor Buckman died on 23rd November 1884.

Julia died shortly after Percy’s birth on 1oth November 1865 and was buried on 16th November 1865 in St Mary the Virgin Churchyard, Bradford Abbas, aged 31. There is a plaque (see below) in memory of Julia, erected by her brother, Henry Browne Savory.

Sydney was a British palaeontologist and stratigrapher. He is known for his studies of extinct marine invertebrates, especially the Brachiopoda and Ammonoidea of the Jurassic era. Sydney and his wife Maude were active in the early modern feminist movement, promoting practical clothing for women through organisations such as the Western Rational Dress Movement and Cycling for Women. The National Portrait Gallery has a portrait of him, by his brother Percy. His obituary can be read here.

Percy was a British artist who was born in Bradford Abbas, Dorset 31st October 1865. He studied art at the Royal Academy schools and exhibited there from 1886-1937; he was known as a landscape and portrait painter; he was elected to RMS 1920; during 1892-3 he joined Newberry and Carter as an artists at Beni Hasan and other sites; he was employed as an art master at the Goldsmiths Institute which from 1904 became Goldsmiths College of the University of London until Dec. 1930; his work was published in Beni Hasan IV, 1900 and several of his watercolours are preserved in The Egypt Exploration Society; he died at Tonbridge, Kent 4 June 1948; inf. C. Naunton.