Articles from the Thoroton Society Newsletter
Sir George Savile, 8th Baronet
By S. Law (Geoffrey Bond Award Recipient 2022)
On 18 July 1726, bonfires blazed at Rufford Abbey and Eakring Rectory, strong beer flowed, and bells rang out across Eakring, Wellow, Bilsthorpe and Mansfield. Lady Mary Savile (nee Pratt), wife of Sir George, seventh Baronet, had given birth to her second child and husband’s heir, George, in lodgings along St James’s Street, London. Seventeen years later, on the death of his beloved father, young George would become the eighth baronet Savile, and a year later, manager of a sizeable fortune derived from lands in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Ireland. An independent-minded Whig, Sir George entered Parliament as MP for Yorkshire aged 33, and, ‘idol of the county’, was returned uncontested until his death in 1784.
While limited scholarly attention has been given to Sir George’s political career, the broader canvas of his life has been largely ignored. The central importance of family and country seat - Rufford Abbey - in both moulding his character and providing the stage on which his ideals of agricultural, economic, social, moral and aesthetic improvement could be realised directly, stand all but forgotten. With the generous support of the Geoffrey Bond Award it has, however, been possible to access the principal archival sources relating to the baronet’s life, begin to flesh out his biography and assess its impact and influence on the Nottinghamshire landscape and beyond.
Sir George’s life played out in multiple contexts and on regional, national and international stages. On a regional level were his estates, in particular, Rufford. Throughout his life, Savile sought to consolidate and improve his property in Nottinghamshire through the purchase and exchange of land, investment and, on occasions, enclosure. The manors of Oilerton, Boughton and Egmanton were bought from the Markham estate in 1746; the Broughton estate of Bilsthorpe, Laxton, Oilerton and Dean Hall followed in 1750 almost doubling Savile’s rental income. Significant tracts of waterway were cut within the new areas; investment made into improving newly acquired property including Oilerton church, corn and paper mills; the manor of Oilerton was enclosed. Small and large land exchanges were agreed, including areas of Morton Grange with the Duke of Newcastle. Access routes were improved, and Savile became a stockholder within the Worksop to Kelham Turnpike Trust. Closer to home, the garden walls at Rufford were removed, kitchen garden extended, canalisation modified, a home farm established, hop holdings enlarged and significant areas of woodland established, including Pittance Park and ‘Cutts Plantation’ on the perimeter of Old Park.
At the national level, Savile conducted a distinguished parliamentary career, lauded on both sides of the House for his clarity of mind and integrity. He served as a lieutenant-colonel within the West Riding Regiment. His personal interests — scientific, sporting, commercial — found a larger stage within both the Royal Society and Arts Society, serving on the latter’s Agricultural Committee from 1760 and supporting the Society’s award for improving ship hydrodynamics. The baronet was a long-standing patron of Trinity House, committed to the Spurn Lighthouse project, experimented with scale models of boats in his homes and sailed for pleasure. An advocate of religious tolerance, Sir George supported the Unitarian movement believing a clergyman could uphold Christian values without being signatory to the Thirty-Nine Articles. Joseph Priestley dedicated Experiments and Observations relating to Various Branches of Natural Philosophy (1779) to this patron with whom he found common ground in matters scientific, political and spiritual.
The American inventor, political philosopher and statesman, Benjamin Franklin placed Savile’s portrait in his home, and Sir George was elected member of the American Philosophical Society in 1768. On this international stage, the baronet’s name is coupled with that of his dear friend, David Hartley (1731-1813), fellow critic of the African slave-trade and supporter of American Independence. It was in Hartley’s arms that, on 9 January 1784 at 2am, Sir George spoke his final recorded words: ‘I have finished, and I have finished well’.
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