Dr Charles Harley Savory

Charles Harley Savory was born at 131, Sutherland Ave, London, W9 on 1st August 1890 to Arthur Ledsam Savory and Agnes Rocke Stevens. He was their fourth child and first son.

Charles Savory wished to join the Royal Navy; but failed the Dartmouth entrance examination. For some reason this also prevented him from going to Winchester. He was therefore sent to Uppingham. He liked it and as a result his twin brothers, Reginald and Kenneth, also went to Uppingham.

He went to Uppingham in January 1906 and he left in August 1908 and he boarded at Meadhurst House.

After Uppingham, Charles went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and then went to St Bartholomew’s to qualify as a doctor.

He was admitted to Trinity College on the 25th June 1908 as a pensioner (a normal fee-paying undergraduate) and was assigned the scientist Sir William Cecil Dampier Whetham as a tutor. Charles lived at 1 Green Street throughout his first year at Trinity and moved in Michaelmas term of his second year, he moved to 17 Market Hill.

According to records from the University, he took Part III of the Preliminary Examination in Science – focusing on Biology – in 1910. In 1911, he was excused from taking Part I of the Natural Sciences Tripos. In 1912, he sat the Special Examination in Physiology and was awarded a BA degree.

Records indicate that he was a member of the Trinity Rugby Team in October 1910 (see photo below).

He entered St Barts on 11th September 1911, his records (see image bel0w) show he passed his Anatomy & Physiology, Practical Pharmacy, 1914; and Medicine, Surgery and Midwifery, April 1915.

Soon after the outbreak of war in 1914, he joined the Navy as a surgeon and saw service with the Harwich Flotilla. One of his ships was H.M.S. Cleopatra. At the end of the war, he joined his father, Arthur, at Savory & Moore, but after a short time rejoined the Navy. He subsequently saw service with the South American Squadron (H.M.S. Durban); in the East Indies (H.M.S. Frobisher) and in the Mediterranean (H.M.S. Glorious). He was a Surgeon Commander when he left the Navy.

On 16 August 1916, he married Aileen Mary Sutherland in Ringmer, Sussex. They had three children, Anthony Charles Sutherland (b.29th May 1918), David Arthur (b.28th September 1919) and Barbara Mary (b.15th November 1920).

At about the time he left the Navy in 1938, he separated from his wife Aileen who divorced him in 1941 in Winchester. In 1938 he moved to Newmarket, Suffolk, working as a GP. He married his second wife, Emily (Emmie) Smith on 6 August 1942.

He died on 28th February 1956 and the Newmarket Journal reported as follows:

“The death occurred suddenly in the early hours of Tuesday morning of Dr. Charles Harley Savory, Camden House, High Street, Newmarket. With this death Newmarket has lost one of its outstanding personalities and a popular figure throughout the district he served….A man who was at home in any company, Dr. Savory dearly loved a joke and his general outlook on life earned him a large circle of friends…It was in 1940 that he came to Newmarket to join Dr. Gray and Partners and shortly after the war opened his own practice. He was a keen follower of sport and in his younger days a competent rugby player. He was elected a member of the Newmarket District Council in 1951, and in 1953 was elected chairman of the Public Health Committee, an office he held up to the time of his death.”