Savage, Marmion Wilme (1803–72), novelist and journalist, was born 22 February 1803 in Dublin, the only child of Revd Henry Savage and Sarah Savage (née Bewley). He grew up in his father's parish in Ardkeen, Co. Down. Awarded a BA in classics by TCD (1824), he went on to study law at the Inner Temple in London in 1828. Auditor of the College Historical Society (1829–30), from 1830 to 1847 he wrote articles for the Examiner, the Amulet, and occasionally for the Dublin University Magazine, among other journals. He was called to the bar at King’s Inns, Dublin, and served as first clerk of the council at Dublin Castle until 1856. The author of several popular satirical novels, he published the first three anonymously in deference to his government position. The first of these, The Falcon family; or, Young Ireland (1845), was a satire on the Young Ireland movement. It was followed by The bachelor of the Albany (1848) and My uncle the curate (1849). By this time his authorship was known unofficially by many of his literary contemporaries in London. Though he subsequently wrote Reuben Medlicott; or, The coming man (1852) and The woman of business; or, The lady and the lawyer (1870) under his own name, his relative obscurity was in part the outcome of his long-time anonymity. His novelette Clover cottage; or, I can't get in (1856) was dramatised at the Olympic theatre, London, in 1859 as a one-act comedietta by Tom Taylor entitled ‘Nine points of the law’.
Savage married first (1839) Olivia Clarke (d. 1843), a niece of Lady Morgan (Sydney Owenson) (qv); they had one son, who died at about age 20. He married secondly (1846) Narissa Rosavo ‘Rosa’ Hutton, a daughter of Thomas Hutton (qv) of Dublin; they had no children. In 1856 he moved to London, where he worked as a journalist and became editor of the Examiner. He retired in ill health to Torquay, Devon, in 1861, and died there on 1 May 1872.