Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Savile, Bourchier Wrey
SAVILE, BOURCHIER WREY (1817–1888), author, second son of Albany Savile, M.P., of Okehampton, who died in 1831, by Eleanora Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Bourchier Wrey, bart., was born on 11 March 1817. He was admitted to Westminster School on 23 Jan. 1828, and was elected a king's scholar there in 1831. He became a pensioner of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1835, and graduated B.A. in 1839 and M.A. in 1842. He was successively curate of Christ Church, Hales Owen, Worcestershire, in 1840, of Okehampton, Devonshire, in 1841, and of Newport, Devonshire, in 1848; chaplain to Earl Fortescue from 1844; rector of West Buckland, Devonshire, in 1852; then curate of Tawstock, Devonshire, in 1855, of Tattingstone, Suffolk, in 1860, of Dawlish, Devonshire, in 1867, of Combeinteignhead, Devonshire, in 1870, and of Launcells, Cornwall, in 1871. From 1872 to his death he was rector of Dunchideock with Shillingford St. George, Devonshire. He died at Shillingford rectory on 14 April 1888, and was buried on 19 April. He married, in April 1842, Mary Elizabeth, daughter of James Whyte of Pilton House, Devonshire, and had issue four sons, including Bourchier Beresford, paymaster of the navy; Henry, commander in the navy; and five daughters.
Savile was a contributor to the ‘Transactions of the Victoria Institute’ and to the ‘Journal of Sacred Literature,’ and the author of upwards of forty volumes. His works, chiefly theological and in tone evangelical, display much learning. His volume on ‘Anglo-Israelism and the Great Pyramid’ (1880) exposes the fallacies of the belief in the Jewish origin of the English people.
Among his other publications were: 1. ‘The Apostasy: a Commentary on 2 Thessalonians, Chapter ii.,’ 1853. 2. ‘The First and Second Advent, with reference to the Jew, the Gentile, and the Church of God,’ 1858. 3. ‘Lyra Sacra: being a Collection of Hymns Ancient and Modern, Odes, and Fragments of Sacred Poetry,’ 1861; 3rd edit. 1865. 4. ‘Bishop Colenso's Objections to the Veracity of the Pentateuch: an Examination,’ 1863. 5. ‘The Introduction of Christianity into Britain: an Argument on the Evidences in favour of St. Paul having visited the Extreme Boundary of the West,’ 1861. 6. ‘Egypt's Testimony to Sacred History,’ 1866. 7. ‘The Truth of the Bible: Evidence from the Mosaic and other Records of Creation,’ 1871. 8. ‘Apparitions: a Narrative of Facts,’ 1874; 2nd edit. 1880. 9. ‘The Primitive and Catholic Faith in relation to the Church of England,’ 1875. 10. ‘Turkey; or the Judgment of God upon Apostate Christendom under the Three Apocalyptic Woes,’ 1877. 11. ‘Prophecies and Speculations respecting the End of the World,’ 1883. 12. ‘Mr. Gladstone and Professor Huxley on the Mosaic Cosmogony,’ 1886.
[Crockford's Clerical Directory, 1882, p. 961; Allibone's Dict. Engl. Lit. 1871 ii. 1939, 1891 ii. 1317; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1894, p. 1796; information from Rev. S. H. Atkins, rector of Dunchideock.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.241
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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