LIEUTENANT CUTHBERT FARRAR SAVAGE
NORTHUMBERLAND FUSILIERS
20TH JUNE 1917 AGE 26
BURIED: LIJSSENTHOEK MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
Cuthbert Savage's inscription comes from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and refers to the death of Mr Valiant-for-Truth:
"When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the Riverside, into which as he went he said, Death where is thy sting? And as he went down deeper he said, Grave, where is thy victory? So he passed over, and all the Trumpets sounded for him on the other side."
And why did the trumpets sound? Because, for those who die in Christ, "the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall all be changed", [I Corinthians 15:52] meaning that for those whom the trumpets sound the Christian promise of eternal life is assured.
Educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford, Cuthbert Savage was studying law in Vancouver, British Columbia, when the war broke out. He enlisted in the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada and arrived in England in January 1915, where he was commissioned into the Northumberland Fusiliers. He went with them to France in August 1915.
On 20 June 1917, Savage was wounded by a shell which burst at his feet outside Battalion HQ at Dickebusch. He died that night in a Casualty Clearing Station at Poperinghe from "multiple gun shot wounds and compound fractures of the humerus and the knee".
A friend who knew him well described him as:
"a gallant lad - handsome as a young Greek god, courteous, charming and gifted. I have many memories of him, ski-ing down steep snow slopes with such grace, skill and daring, dancing and laughing and jesting with his friends, or discussing serious matters with earnestness and intelligence."
Memorials of Rugbeians Who Fell in the Great War, Volume V
Cuthbert Savage was the only son of Canon Edwin Sidney Savage, Rector of Hexham, and Sibyl, daughter of the Very Revd FW Farrar DD, Dean of Canterbury.