Richard Gabriel Akinwande Savage

Major Richard Gabriel Akinwande Savage (1903 - 1993) was a medical doctor, soldier, and first person of West African heritage to receive a British Army commission.[1]

Earl 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.[1][2] His sister, Agnes Yewande Savage, also played a pioneering role as the first West African woman to qualify as a medical doctor.[3]

Education

Savage studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduated (MB, ChB)[1] in 1926, and received his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant on 23 September 1940, making him the first West African to be commissioned an officer in the British Army (Seth Anthony of Ghana, has been incorrectly referenced as the first West African to receive a commission in the British Army).[1] He served as a medical doctor in the Asian Theater of World War 2, specifically in Burma, where he tended to wounded soldiers from Britain's contingent. Among the soldiers that Savage treated in the Burma was Isaac Fadoyebo, a wounded Nigerian soldier in the Royal West African Frontier Force, who recounted the quality of care that Savage provided to him and other West African soldiers.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Keazor, Ed. "Tracking Captain Savage: The Forgotten Pioneer of African Military History". Nsibidi Institute. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  2. ↑ "CAS Students to Lead Seminar On University's African Alumni, Pt. IV: Agnes Yewande Savage". University of Edinburgh - Center for African Studies Postgraduate Students Blog. Retrieved 23 December 2016.
  3. ↑ Patton, Adell. Physicians, Colonial Racism, and Diaspora in West Africa. University Press of Florida, 1996. p. 28. ISBN 9780813014326. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  4. ↑ Phillips, Barnaby. Another Man's War: The Story of a Burma Boy in Britain's Forgotten Army. Oneworld Publications, 2014. ISBN 9781780745237. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
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