Charles Harley Savory

Charles Harley Savory was born on 27 November 1829.  He became a partner in Savory & Moore in 1854 at the aged of 25. He was a keen member of the Volunteers, being an officer in the 11th Middlesex (St George’s) Rifle Corps. His wife, Melita, kept a diary and in an entry dated 11th February 1860 records one of the parades he attended:

“The St.George’s Volunteers marched out today with their band down to Chelsea, and a most unpropitious day they had, for just a they started the snow began to fall heavily and continued to do so all the time they were out. I took the children over to Bond Street to see Papa pass, and there we found Mammy (Mrs John Savory, Melita’s mother-in-law). We half expected to be disappointed of our expected sight as the weather was so bad; but NO!, pleasantly the band was heard. We rushed excitedly to the window and beheld the gallant St George’s marching bravely through the blinding snowstorm and a keen wintry wind. The colonel was on his horse and Charlie was doing Captain’s duty and as a grave as if celebrating his own obsequies. However, joking apart, they looked an uncommonly soldierly set of men and marked, as Charlie says, like one o’clock!”

Charles had married Melita Ledsam at St Peter’s Church, Burnham on 11th July 1855. She was the daughter of Major John Ledsam who had been Quartermaster of the Royal Fusiliers and who was a Military Knight of Windsor.

Charles and Melita lived at 1A Argyll Place, Soho (now Palladium House), opposite the 220 Regent Street shop of Savory & Moore, until 1861, when they moved to 1 Lancaster Gate, Hyde Park, where Savory & Moore had another shop.

In the 1861 census, image below, they are listed as having 10 servants in their household including, a porter, under-porter, cook, 2 housemaids, a nurse and a nursemaid.

As already mentioned Melita kept a diary and for most of those years 1856 to 1864 are still intact. In 1857 she recorded in great detail her household expenditure month-by-month. She had an allowance of £15 per quarter. Her heaviest expenditure was the weekly wage of 12/- of the wet nurse. Few of her other items of expenditure exceeded 50p. Some examples:

Rail fare: London to Windsor 1/6

Gloves 2/9

Hair cut 1/-

Shoes for her baby son Arthur 2/4

Dress for nurse 8/6

At the end of the year she had a credit balance £1.17.91/2.

One further extract from Melita’s diary is worth quoting, in view of its encouragement for old military men!

“24th March 1861. A grand dinner party in Sussex Place (the home of John Savory) last night. We were asked in place of Captain and Mrs Mead who were unable to go. We sat down 14 in number; General Brotherton, Mr and Mrs White Cooper, Mr Morgan, Captain Phipps, Major Mackenzie, Mr and Mrs Anderson, and ourselves. The dinner was ‘ à la Russe‘ and quote splendid. The old general made a dead set at me and insisted on carrying on a brisk flirtation, both during dinner and afterwards, much to my own amusement and everyone else’s. I always think a flirtation with a pleasant old gentleman is very jolly, especially if he is military.”

Melita and Charles had six children, Arthur Ledsam, Herbert Whitmore, Rosalie Julia, Ernest Jeffrey Charles, Sybil Mary and Julius.

Charles died at the age of 44 on the 27th August 1874, from a cystic growth on the brain, at 1 Lancaster Gate, Hyde Park. He is buried in Kensall Green Cemetery.

Charles’ second name of Harley came from the well known actor, John Pritt Harley, who was a friend of both his father John and great uncle, Thomas Field Savory. John Pritt Harley was almost certainly Charles Harley Savory’s godfather.

John Pritt Harley Savory was born in 1786. He was apprenticed to a draper in Ludgate Hill, but soon turned to his real interest, the theatre; embarking on his professional career in 1806. His speciality was comedy and he was reputed to be one of the finest Shakespearian clowns. He was chiefly associated with productions at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and the English Opera House.

One of his passions was collecting walking sticks. Over 300 were found in his home at his death in 1858. A letter survives (?), dated 20th October 1857, and written to Charles Harley Savory, in which he refers to a curious stick he is sending him. There were only two of them “The Emperor of China got one and I the other.”.

There are two water colours of John Pritt Harley in the Somerset Maughan Collection on display in the National Theatre. JRS Paddon (deceased) possessed a silver tankard with the names of John Pritt Harley and his friend John Braham, an opera singer, engraved on it.