George Mearns Savery

Savery came from a Wesleyan Church family background. He was born in Kingston, Jamaica,{{Refn|George Mearns Savery (Kingston, Jamaica 2 March 1850 – Grange-over-Sands 2 March 1905). GRO index: Deaths Mar 1905 Savery George Mearns 55 Ulverston 8e 540. |group=nb}} the son of Reverend George Savery, a Wesleyan minister from Devon.{{Refn|George Savery (born Devonport c.1816)|group=nb}} His mother was Philippa Savery née West from Cornwall.{{Refn|Philippa Savery née West (St Breock 1821 – October 1891).|group=nb}} As a child Savery lived with his family in Vogue, Cornwall, surrounded by copper miners,{{cite web |title=1851 England Census. Vogue, Cornwall. HO107/1914. Schedule 41|url-access=subscription |url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/8860/records/17053262?tid=&pid=&queryid=e1485901-1480-4036-b227-70181c4bfe99&_phsrc=HFg227&_phstart=successSource |website=ancestry.co.uk |publisher=H.M. Government |access-date=2 November 2024 |page=01/203|quote=Father: George Savery, Wesleyan minister, born in Devonport, Devon 13 December 1815}} and was the third of nine siblings.{{Refn|The children of George and Philippa Savery were: Ellen West Savery (born 1845), Ann West Savery (1847–1926), George Mearns Savery (1850–1905), Philippa Edgecombe Jessup née Savery (born 1851), William Henry Savery (1854–1919), James West Savery (1856–1886), John Manly Savery (1859–1939), Samuel Servington Savery (1861–1938), Edith May Savery (1863–1915)|group=nb}} He was educated at Kingswood School, Bath, and Queen's College, Taunton.{{cite news |title=School's new era |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000221/19240809/075/0018 |access-date=10 April 2025 |work=Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=9 August 1924 |pages=18,19}} On 20 June 1879 at the Temple Chapel, Taunton, Somerset, he married Caroline Amelia Sibly, daughter of Thomas Sibly,{{Refn|Thomas Sibly (born Penzance 1813).|group=nb}}{{cite web |title=1881 England Census. Wesleyan College, Taunton, Somerset. RG11/2368. Page 35/113. Schedule 185 |url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/7572/records/18495221?tid=&pid=&queryId=123ff9c3-df1e-4963-b88a-c36b3598b9a5&_phsrc=HFg329&_phstart=successSource |website=ancestry.co.uk|url-access=subscription |publisher=H.M. Government |access-date=13 April 2025 |date=1881}} headmaster of the Wesleyan College, Taunton. They had three children.{{Refn|Caroline Amelia Savery née Sibly (Taunton October 1847 – Taunton 26 January 1824) GRO index: Marriages Jun 1879 Savery George Mearns and Sibly Caroline Amelia, Taunton 5c 534. Caroline and Geroge Mearns Savery had three children: George (born 1883), William (born 1885) and Laura (born 1889). Caroline Amelia Sibly was possibly a relative of Thomas Franklin Sibly..|group=nb}}{{cite news |title=Marriages |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000265/18790627/085/0005 |access-date=8 April 2025 |work=Western Times |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=27 June 1879 |page=5 col.5}}

Savery received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Lincoln College, Oxford in 1876, and his Master of Arts in 1880,{{cite news |title=Deaths |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000051/19050307/004/0001 |access-date=31 October 2024 |work=Daily News (London) |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=7 March 1905 |page=1 col.1}}{{cite book |last1=Foster |first1=Joseph |title=Alumni Oxonienses (vol.4) |date=1888 |publisher=Parker & Co |location=Oxford |page=28/1258 |edition=1 |url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Alumni_Oxoniensis_%281715-1886%29_volume_4.djvu/page28-2424px-Alumni_Oxoniensis_%281715-1886%29_volume_4.djvu.jpg |access-date=2 November 2024 |quote=Savery, George Mearns. Father: George, of Kingston, Jamaica, cleric. Non-collegiate. Matriculated 12 October 1872, aged 22. B.A. from Lincoln College, 1876, M.A. 1880.}} being president of the Oxford Union Society in 1876. Former prime minister H. H. Asquith was a contemporary of Savery at the Oxford Union, and in 1920 still showed "an immediate and genuine interest" when Savery's name was mentioned by his former pupil, Sir Bertrand Watson, member of parliament for Stockton-on-Tees.{{cite book |last1=Hewlett |first1=Dorothy |title=Harrogate College 1893-1973 |date=1981 |publisher=Harrogate College |location=North Yorkshire, England |isbn=9780950742700}}{{rp|22}} Beginning while still an undergraduate, between at least 1871 and 1881 Savery was a classical tutor, senior master and housemaster at the Wesleyan College (now Queen's College, Taunton) in Somerset.{{cite web |title=1871 England Census. Wesleyan College, Somerset. RG10/2367. Schedule 151.|url-access=subscription |url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/7619/records/14712912?tid=&pid=&queryid=e1485901-1480-4036-b227-70181c4bfe99&_phsrc=HFg227&_phstart=successSource |website=ancestry.co.uk |publisher=H.M. Government |access-date=2 November 2024 |page=33/64}}{{cite web |title=1881 England Census. Wesleyan College School, Taunton, Somerset. RG11/2364. Page 20/24. Schedule 77 |url-access=subscription|url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/7572/records/18471040?tid=&pid=&queryid=272a1f2f-c73e-4cd0-a32e-0c1c69452615&_phsrc=HFg221&_phstart=successSource |website=ancestry.co.uk |publisher=H.M. Government |access-date=31 October 2024 |quote=Savery is shown with his wife and brother, as housemaster to a number of boys, some born in colonial locations such as Bahamas}}{{cite book |last1=Cheal |first1=Tony |title=George Mearns Savery (sometime of Queen's College, Taunton). Ref. LH00011945 |date=1999 |publisher=Typescript, 3 pages |location=South West Heritage Trust |url=http://library-cat.swheritage.org.uk/archive/ITEMVT00003228 |access-date=2 November 2024}} In 1885 he was appointed headmaster of Ripon Road College, later called Harrogate College, at Bilton, Harrogate,{{cite web |title=1891 England Census. Ripon Road Collage, Bilton with Harrogate, RH12/3519. Schedule 35. |url-access=subscription|url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/6598/records/5918581?tid=&pid=&queryid=272a1f2f-c73e-4cd0-a32e-0c1c69452615&_phsrc=HFg221&_phstart=successSource |website=ancestry.co.uk |publisher=H.M. Government |access-date=2 November 2024 |page=10 |date=1891}} living in-house with staff and pupils. He was headmaster of that boys' school until it closed in 1903.{{cite news |title=Harrogate College |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0004183/18990309/075/0011 |access-date=25 October 2024 |work=Methodist Times |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=9 March 1899 |page=11 col.2}} He was noted for his administrative capacity, and he was said by the Halifax Evening Courier to have had a "kindly disposition".{{cite news |title=Death of Mr G. M. Savery |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002843/19050303/049/0004 |access-date=31 October 2024 |work=Halifax Evening Courier |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=3 March 1905 |page=4 col.2}} He is remembered today for the 1893 foundation and initial proprietorship of Harrogate Ladies' College.{{Refn|Harrogate Ladies' College was renamed "Harrogate College" around 1960, but later reverted to its original name. Although financially successful, Savery's Harrogate College for boys was closed in 1899 (possibly due to Savery's illness). It is possible that a number of its pupils transferred to Clifton College, which soon became Clifton House School. In the early 20th century Harrogate Ladies' College was associated with a new Harrogate College for boys, which in due course closed. None of these had any connection with the current Harrogate College.|group=nb}}{{cite news |title=Harrogate College (full page spread) |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000687/19330725/166/0006 |access-date=31 October 2024 |work=Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=25 July 1933 |page=6}}{{cite news |title=The education of British youth. XXVI. Harrogate College |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001578/19601126/104/0035 |access-date=3 November 2024 |work=Illustrated London News |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=26 November 1960 |page=35/957}}

{{Not to be confused with|Harrogate College}}

File:Harrogate College picture book undated (25a).JPG

File:Ad for Harrogate College (3).JPG

This school was founded and built in 1863–1864 by William Henry Heigham,{{Refn|William Henry Heigham (1801 – 7 October 1883).|group=nb}} on Ripon Road, Harrogate.{{cite book |last1=Neesam |first1=Malcolm |title=Wells and Swells: The Golden Age of Harrogate Spa, 1842–1923 |date=2022 |publisher=Carnegie Publishing Ltd |isbn=978-1859362389}}{{rp|412,572}} The school had a roll of around eighty boys including boarders, and was a "substantial stone building with a tower and battlements", according to Hewlett (1981).{{rp|11}} An early reference to the Harrogate College for boys was a news report of a cricket match between Ilkley College and Harrogate College, held in May 1875.{{cite news |title=Ilkley College vs Harrogate College |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000686/18750527/192/0008 |access-date=9 April 2025 |work=Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=27 May 1875 |page=8 col.6}} Heigham died in 1883,{{rp|412}} and the school was headed by Savery who owned shares in it from 1885 to 1899 when he retired. According to a school advertisement of 1899, the school was doing well in that year,{{cite news |title=Harrogate College |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0004183/18990309/075/0011 |access-date=25 October 2024 |work=Methodist Times |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=9 March 1899 |page=11 col.2}} and it had a preparatory school in Strathmore House on Ripon Road,{{cite news |title=Malcolm Neesam's Bygone Harrogate: 100 0years ago |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0005146/19990507/076/0007 |access-date=4 November 2024 |work=Harrogate Advertiser and Weekly List of the Visitors |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=7 May 1999 |page=7 col.8}} but it closed in 1903.{{cite news |title=Leeds (Roscoe Place) |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004183/18871110/025/0010 |access-date=9 April 2025 |work=Methodist Times |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=10 November 1887 |page=10 col.2}} On the subject of Harrogate College, Jean Walton (1979) suggested that "Illness in a boys' school could be totally disasterous (sic), once boys were sent home schools were often found for them and this happened to the boys' school".{{cite book |last1=Walton |first1=Jean |title=The History of Education in Harrogate. Harrogate Town Trail booklet |date=July 1979 |publisher=North Yorkshire County Council Harrogate Teachers' Centre |location=Harrogate, England}}

In 1881 Savery's brother Samuel Servington Savery, aged 20 years, was attending this school as a scholar. By 1889, S.S. Savery had attained his Master of Arts at Christ Church College, Oxford and was teaching at the school. Savery was advertising in the Wesleyan Times in that year that Harrogate College boasted three Oxbridge-educated members of staff, besides S. B. Wilson, M.A., a graduate of the University of York teaching science, and other staff skilled in foreign languages, drawing and music. The same advertisement declared that "the situation of the College is well suited for giving health and vigour to the constitution", that the college was offering an entrance scholarship, and that the sons of Welseyan ministers might be offered a reduced fee. The abovementioned S.B. Wilson of Harrogate College shared Savery's connection with Taunton, in that he was a guest lecturer on the subject of carbon in that town in 1887.{{cite news |title=Lecture |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000526/18870112/011/0004 |access-date=9 April 2025 |work=Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=12 January 1887 |page=4 col.5}} The school closed in 1903.

{{Main|Harrogate Ladies' College}}

File:Ad for two Harrogate schools 1899 (1).JPG

File:Elizabeth Wilhelmina Jones (6b).jpg

The school was initially known as The Ladies' College, then Harrogate College. It was founded by Savery in 1893 in a private house under the headship of Betsy Field Hall, who ran the school until 1898, when it occupied Percy Lodge.{{cite news |title=A noneganarian |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000540/19591028/179/0008 |access-date=8 April 2025 |work=The Scotsman |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=28 October 1959 |page=8 col.5}} The Yorkshire Post commented that it was, "the product of a pioneer mind, an inspired adventure in building ... [Savery was] the first to see in Yorkshire an opening for a girls' public school of the first class ... His distinction was that he saw it [in 1893]". In 1901 he planned a new school building in collaboration with Miss M. E. Jones.{{Refn|Elizabeth Wilhelmina Jones, known as M. E. Jones (c.1869 – December 1959). GRO index: Deaths Dec 1959 Jones Elizabeth W. 90 Eastbourne 5h 280. Jones was the daughter of Reverend J. W. Jones of Donaghpatrick, County Meath, Ireland.|group=nb}}{{cite web |title=Elizabeth Wilhelmina Jones collection, 1959-1960 |url=https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/harrogatecollegeunion |website=archives.lib.duke.edu |publisher=Duke University Libraries |access-date=9 April 2025}} She was an Ulster-born graduate of Queen's College, Belfast, a form mistress at Bradford Girls' Grammar School,{{cite web |title=A milestone anniversary for Harrogate Ladies' College |url=https://www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/magazines/yorkshire/22637145.milestone-anniversary-harrogate-ladies-college/ |website=greatbritishlife.co.uk |publisher=Great British Life |access-date=9 April 2025 |date=4 April 2013}}{{cite news |title=Educational. Harrogate Ladies' College |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004183/18980526/030/0005 |access-date=9 April 2025 |work=Methodist Times |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=26 May 1898 |page=5 col.3}} then headmistress at Harrogate Ladies' College from September 1898 to 1935.{{cite news |title=Appointment |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0006025/18980406/045/0002 |access-date=9 April 2025 |work=Drogheda Advertiser |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=6 April 1898 |page=2 col.7}}

Ground was broken in 1902, and the building was opened on 17 May 1904. In this building, according to the Yorkshire Post, Savery and Jones planned "everything for the best ... which would do in the lives of women what public schools for boys [had] done for men". A 1904 advertisement for the newly-housed school quoted a "fine lecture hall and classrooms, studio, laboratory, library, workshop, large gymnasium, pupils' sitting rooms, single bedrooms, 15 sound-proof music rooms, 10 tennis courts, hockey and cricket grounds, cycling path, gravel playgrounds etc."{{cite news |title=Harrogate Ladies' College |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000250/19040716/174/0016 |access-date=8 April 2025 |work=Sheffield Daily Telegraph |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=16 July 1904 |page=16 col.4}}

As described the by Yorkshire Post, the ideals of Savery and Jones for the school were, "advancement in scholastic matters, the promotion of physical well-being, [and] the infusion of a fine moral and spiritual tone". They rejected ideas of "domination of ideas for the education of boys", the bluestocking, the hausfrau and the finishing school, in favour of potential female careers, "mental and moral training [and] personal responsibility", public duty, and home-making including "pride in the beauty and order of the home". Those ideals of 1901 would, of course, be superseded in certain respects in later years.

In Harrogate Town Council Savery served as councillor for West Ward, and he served on Harrogate United District School Board. He was a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society,{{cite news |title=Harrogate College |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004183/18890502/054/0019 |access-date=9 April 2025 |work=Methodist Times |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=2 May 1889 |page=19 cols 2,3}} and at one point he was chairman of Harrogate Literary Society.{{cite news |title=Grange: Death of Mr Savery |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000399/19050304/404/0008 |access-date=31 October 2024 |work=Westmorland Gazette |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=4 March 1905 |page=8 col.5}} In Leeds in 1887, in connection with the Wesleyan Institute, Savery gave a lecture on "The Art of Reading and Speaking". The Methodist Times reported that the lecture was "highly entertaining, abounding, as it did, in illustrations of various styles of speaking, given with remarkable skill".

File:Grave of G.M. Savery (1).JPG

When Savery died of pulmonary tuberculosis at Grange-over-Sands after an illness of over a year,{{Refn|Death certificate of George Mearns Savery. It says, "Second March 1906 [at] Thornfield Villa, Grange over Sands U[rban] D[istrict], George Mearns Savery, 55 years, M.A. Oxford. Pulmonary tuberculosis 1 year 3 months. Bronchitis 28 days. Certified. Edith Mary Savery, sister, present at the death, (of Bramcote, Scarborough)". |group=nb}} he left £18,994 gross ({{Inflation|UK|18994|1905|fmt=eq|r=2|cursign=£}}).{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}}{{cite news |title=Recent wills |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004833/19050622/076/0002 |access-date=31 October 2024 |work=Morning Leader |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=22 June 1905 |page=2 col.5}} He was buried at Harlow Hill Cemetery, Harrogate.{{cite news |title=Mr G. M. Savery, Harrogate |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000687/19050622/135/0007 |access-date=31 October 2024 |work=Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer |agency=|via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription |date=22 June 1905 |page=7 col.4}} The Yorkshire Post (1933) said that his early death "denied him a view of the full fruition of his plans and robbed education of a great pioneer". The Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette said, "he was one of the pioneers of the education of girls in this country. Former Harrogate College pupil Bertrand Watson declared that his life was influenced by Savery, who was a "powerful personality and one to whom the term disciplinarian could be applied, but in him we saw the ideal of perfect justice being lived up to most successfully".{{rp|22.23}}

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{{Commons category-inline|George Mearns Savery}}

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Category:1850 births

Category:1905 deaths

Category:19th-century English educators

Category:Education in North Yorkshire

Category:Schoolteachers from Yorkshire

Category:People educated at Kingswood School, Bath

Category:People educated at Queen's College, Taunton

Category:Fellows of the Royal Horticultural Society