Arthur Ledsam Savory

Arthur Ledsam Savory was born on 13th June 1856, in the residence over the Savory & Moore branch at 220 Regent Street. He had the longest association with Savory & Moore of any of the family. Arthur was baptised on 20th July 1856 at Burnham, Buckinghamshire, where the family had a country house – Burnham Priory.

Arthur was schooled at Winchester College, where was a cox in the rowing teams, winning the scratch fours – in 1871 and 1874. After Winchester College. He was apprenticed to Ekin & Appleby chemists at Bath and he became a partner of Savory & Moore in 1884.

Arthur married Agnes Rocke Stevens (known to her family as Maisie) on 24 June 1880 at St Paul’s Church, Clifton, Bristol. She was supposed to have been very jealous of her husband, which was the reason given why she only employed male servants.

They had six children, three sons and three daughters. Margaret Melita, Muriel Agnes, Evelyn Beryl, Charles Harley, and twins Sir Reginald Arthur and Kenneth Stevens.

His eldest daughter, Margaret Melita, recalled:

“I remember, when I was about seven years old (i.e. in about 1888), being taken to 143 New Bond Street. We were driven by grandmother, (Mrs C.H.Savory), in a Victoria behind two fat horses and an equally fat old family coachman. We Savory & Moore Infant’s Food being made and also Dr. Jenner’s lozenges. Boiled sweets were also made on the premises and we were given pocketful’s before we left. There was a large dining room on the first floor above the shop and overlooking Bond Street. It was beautifully furnished with a round mahogany table and there were some lovely ornaments on the mantle piece which impressed me…There was a house-keeper, a Scotswoman, Mrs Muir, who wore a black silk apron and had a bunch of keys dangling from her waist; and at least two maids were kept. The lunch served was lavish, including plenty of wine. Indeed it was there I was given port wine to drink at a very early age. Behind the dining room was a beautiful bedroom, always ready for use, in case my wanted to sleep there and on the floors above were the bedrooms of several live-in assistants, the housekeeper and the maids…My father said he knew so many secrets he could never write an autobiography. King Edward VII consulted him about many things and many times sent for him to come to Buckingham Palace, where they had long talks together.”

One of Arthur’s sons also recalled the coachman and the lavish meals in his recollections. Reginald Arthur writing of the period around 19000 remembers his father building a new house in London.

“…it was in Bramham Gardens, near Earl’s Court. I remember watching the final touches being put to the house, and the parquet flooring being hammered down; the very latest thing in those days. Next door a block of flats was being built and my grandmother (Mrs C.H. Savory) was about to be installed in one of the ground floor flats. The number of ours was 31 (see image below).We had a telephone installed in the house. This was very up-to-date. It was installed in the entrance hall and when the bell rang every person in the house would come running to answer it. My father was a wealthy man. He used to go off, I remember to his business in the morning in a carriage driven by his coachman, a genial fat chap called Mar who lived in the mews near the back of the house, in a quarter over the stable and coach-house. Off my father used to go to his business. There he would stay until about one o’clock, stroll down to his club, the Devonshire, and have an enormous lunch (every meals in those days seemed to have been a banquet), then settle in an armchair and doze before going back to the office for another couple of hours, and either walk home across the park or was driven back by Mar.”

Reginald also recalled his father visiting him, when he was at a crammer in Germany, in about 1911:

“He would pick me up at Hanover and take me off to Berlin where we used to stay in the smartest hotel in the place, The Adlon…I remember my father saying “Now Reg, old boy, as you talk German you call the tune and I’ll pay the piper; what is there to be seen after dinner?” Berlin in those days was very famous for what was called it Nachtleben, or nightlife, and even in Paris there was no real nightlife such as there was to be found in Berlin. The place was full of nightlife. The streets were full, the shops, open, the cabarets open and all that kind of thing. I think in one way or another my father and I enjoyed ourselves. He was a tremendous chap, enjoying life in every way and, I think, he rather liked me having a good time and learning a little about the ‘high life’…”

In the 1930’s they moved from Earl’s Court and purchased a newly built large detached house, at 67 Roehampton Lane, SW15 (see picture bel0w).

Arthur Ledsam Savory was a distinguished Freemason and a founder member of the Old Wykamist Lodge,in 1911, which was the Lodge formed by Winchester College Old Boys (see image below). He died on 20 April 1932, is funeral was at St Margaret’s Church Putney and was cremated in Woking. After his death the following appeared in the ‘News Chronicle‘ under the heading of ‘The Diary of a Man About Town’.

154  years in Bond Street

“Yesterday I heard the news of the death of Mr. Arthur Savory of the famous firm of Savory & Moore, chemists to the King, a firm that has been in the same shop, with the same dignified old style front, in New Bond Street, for 154 years. Mr Savory had himself been 54 years in Bond Street…Mr Savory was a courtly man in his seventies, delightful in his kindness to those younger than himself.

“His family have a fair consistency, had representative in the Royal Navy. One of his brothers retired. I believe, as a Vice Admiral [Herbert Whitmore Savory]. One of his sons, after leaving Winchester, went to St Bartholomew’s, became a surgeon in the Navy, for a while joined the business in Bond Street and in the last few years has returned to the Navy (Charles Harley Savory). Another son, Major Kenneth Savory, won D.S.O. in the war. One of his exploits was to bomb the German warship Goeben and the Turkish War Office in Constantinople. Mr Savory was a leading figure in the London Masonic circle.

Three Generations

“For twenty years I have been a member of the same club in St James’s as Mr Savory. One of my last recollections of him was when he came to the club after attending some Masonic function. A little later on came in Mr Savory’s naval son (Dr Charles Harley Savory), who in the family is always known as ‘The Doctor’ and he brought with him his fair haired son [Anthony Charles Sutherland Savory] who that day had been before the Admirals for the Navy’s celebrated viva-voce [oral] examination. We made a jolly party, and that night Mr Savory was in a happy reminiscent mood.”