SAVILE, SIR HENRY (1549-1622), warden of Merton College, Oxford, and provost of Eton, was the son of Henry Savile of Bradley, near Halifax, in Yorkshire. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1561. He became a fellow of Merton in 1565, proceeded B.A. in 1566, and M.A. in 157o. He established a reputation as a Greek scholar and mathematician by voluntary lectures on the Almagest, and in 1575 became junior proctor. In 1578 he travelled on the continent of Europe, where he collected manuscripts. On his return he was named Greek tutor to the queen, and in 1535 was established as warden of Merton. He proved a successful and autocratic head under whom the college flourished. A trans lation of four Books of the Histories of Tacitus, with a learned Commentary on Roman Warfare in 1591, enhanced his reputation. On May 26, 1596 he obtained the provostship of Eton, the reward of persistent begging. In February 16o1 he was put under arrest on suspicion of having been concerned in the rebel lion of the earl of Essex. He was soon released and his friendship
with the faction of Essex brought him the favour of James I.
In 1604 Savile was knighted, and in that year he was named one of the body of scholars appointed to prepare the authorized version of the Bible. He was entrusted with parts of the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and the Book of Revelation. His edition of Chrysostom (8 vols., fol. 1610-13) was printed by the king's printer, William Norton, in a private press erected at the expense of Sir Henry, who imported the type. At the same press he published an edition of the Cyropaedia in 1618. In 1619 he founded and endowed the Savilian professorships of geometry and astronomy at Oxford. He died at Eton on Feb. 19, 1622.