Biography

English architect. He became a student at the Royal Academy in 1796.

In 1800 he won second prize in a competition for a scheme of improvements to the city of Aberdeen and five years later came first in a competition to rebuild the Ormond Bridge over the Liffey in Dublin, which had been swept away by a storm. The project was delayed, and it was decided instead to build the new bridge about 50 metres west of the destroyed one. Savage exhibited his design for the new location as Richmond Bridge forming the approach to the Four Courts, Dublin at the Royal Academy in 1809. A three-arched bridge built of granite, with cast-iron balustrades, it was constructed in 1813-16. Originally named after the Duke of Richmond, it is now known as the O'Donovan Rossa Bridge. In 1815 Savage won a competition to design a river-crossing at Tempsford in Bedfordshire with another three arched bridge.

In 1819 his plans for the new parish church of St Luke, Chelsea were chosen from among more than 40 submissions. It was an ambitious building, designed to accommodate 2,500 people. He designed it in imitation of the Gothic churches of the 14th and 15th centuries, with solid stone vaulting supported by flying buttresses. Savage designed several other, less ambitious Gothic churches, and one, St James, Bermondsey, in a Classical style.

He submitted designs for the new London Bridge to a committee of the House of Commons in 1823, but they were rejected. In 1825 he drew up a plan which he called the "Surrey Quay" for embanking the south bank of the Thames, from London Bridge to Lambeth. In 1836, he unsuccessfully entered the competition to design the new Houses of Parliament. He was involved in several restoration projects.

He was a member of the Surveyors' Club, and, for many years, member and chairman of the Committee of Fine Arts of the Society for the Promotion of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. He was a founder member of the Graphic Society, a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a member of the Architectural Society, and, briefly a fellow of the Institute of British Architects, from which he resigned after a disagreement. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1799 to 1832.