Researching John Savage

Savage was a right-arm off-break bowler who, unusually for his time, which was an era of increasingly defensive bowling, flighted the ball rather than bowling flat, and a right-handed tail-end batsman. In his first game for Leicestershire in 1953 he hit 31 and 8 not out, and therefore averaged 39.00 with the bat at that point: it proved to be a very false dawn in terms of his batting ability, as he only once surpassed that 31 and his highest score in 17 years was only 33.

It was as an off-spin bowler that, having played a few matches over several seasons, he joined the Leicestershire staff in 1957 and was virtually ever-present in the first team for the next 10 seasons, often providing the only spin alternative to a succession of seam bowlers. Within the first month of the 1957 season Savage had achieved what would prove to be his best batting and bowling performances. In his first match of the season, against Yorkshire, he scored 33. And 10 days later he took eight Gloucestershire wickets for 50 runs in the first innings at the Wagon Works Ground, Gloucester. He took 80 wickets at the economical average of 19.46 in 1957, and had a similar return, 93 wickets at 20.08 in 1958. He was awarded his county cap in 1958.

Savage took 101 wickets in 1959 and repeated the feat of 100 wickets in a season twice more, in 1961 and 1963. His best figures were 122 wickets at an average of 18.93 in 1961 when he also took a hat-trick of three wickets in three balls in the match against Somerset. At the end of the 1961 season he was picked for the Players team in the Gentlemen v Players match at the Scarborough Festival and took five wickets in the second innings to win the game. He was, wrote Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, "one of the best off-spinners in the country". At the start of the 1962 season, he was picked for the season opener match between the 1961 county champions, Yorkshire, and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and at the end of the season and in 1964 he appeared in other Scarborough Festival games; these games were his only representative cricket outside county matches, and with off-spinning all-rounders of the calibre of Fred Titmus, David Allen and Ray Illingworth as his contemporaries, he was not close to Test selection.

After 1963, Savage's wicket-taking powers declined and he did not achieve 100 wickets in a season again. By 1966, when Leicestershire were enjoying a revival under new captain Tony Lock, he took only 55 wickets in 27 matches. By this time, the county had recruited another off-spinner in Jack Birkenshaw, and Savage was released at the end of the 1966 season. He then joined his native Lancashire for three seasons, playing regularly in the first two, but retiring from first-class cricket at the age of 40 in 1969. He then remained with Lancashire for a further nine years as a coach and as captain of the second eleven.

The year following his victory at Bosworth, Henry VII sent Savage to arrest Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother Thomas Stafford, who had risen up against the king in the first major challenge to Henry's reign. Savage led a force to Culham where the two were seeking sanctuary and had them forcibly removed. The brothers were tried and found guilty, Sir Humphrey was executed whilst Thomas was pardoned. This event was notable enough for Pope Innocent VIII to announce a papal bull which established modifications affecting the privilege of sanctuary, significantly limiting its practical use and vindicating the actions taken by Savage on behalf of the King. Savage later served as one of two main cavalry commanders at the Battle of Stoke Field on 16 June 1487, where leading Yorkists fought to put the pretender Lambert Simnel on the throne. This was the final battle of the Wars of the Roses, with the engagement ending in a decisive victory for the Tudors and leaving nearly all of Henry's Yorkist opponents dead. This victory served to end the previously significant factional divisions between those loyal to the houses of York and Lancaster. In 1492 Savage raised a force of men-at-arms and archers and joined Henry's expeditionary force to France. The campaign was intended to stop the French King Charles VIII's support of the pretender to the throne of England Perkin Warbeck. Savage would not return to England alive, losing his life during the Siege of Boulogne.

Savage was a supporter successively of Edward IV of England who appointed him a Knight of the Bath on the occasion of his Queen's coronation on 26 May 1465, and Henry VII, who appointed him a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1488. Savage also served as a member of Henry VII's Privy Council.

Born in 1814 in Glenavy, a town in Antrim, he was knighted upon becoming mayor of Belfast.

Following a riot in the Summer of 1872 that served as a precursor to the 1886 Belfast Riots, he put forth a proclamation that closed public houses for a week, authorized government forces to disperse any public gatherings, and authorized government forces to enter any buildings where shots had been fired.

Savage eventually removed constabulary forces from the city, citing the "perfectly peaceful condition" that had arisen after hostilities had cooled.

He married a woman named Mary Turtle in 1838, and died in 1883, allegedly committing suicide without reason.