Richard Gabriel Akinwande Savage

Major Richard Gabriel Akinwande Savage (1903–1993) was a physician, soldier, and the first person of West African heritage to receive a British Army commission.

Early life and family He was born in 1903 at 15 Buccleugh Place, in Edinburgh, Scotland, of mixed ancestry to the prominent Nigerian doctor Richard Akinwande Savage of Sierra Leone Creole descent, who married a Scotswoman, Maggie Bowie. His sister, Agnes Yewande Savage, also played a pioneering role as the first West African woman to qualify as a medical doctor.

Education Savage studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduated (MB, ChB)

Personal life His first wife was Phyllis Frances Heroina Ribeiro, with whom he had two children (Margaret Yewande Savage and Miguel Babatunde Richard Savage) and who died in 1940. In 1954, he married Dora Janet Burman (née Falconer), a British fellow surgeon. He retired to Scotland, having found Africa "vexing", and died there in 1993.