James Savage (architect)

James Savage (1779–1852) was a British architect. His works include the O'Donovan Rossa Bridge in Dublin and St Luke's Church, Chelsea.

Savage was born in Hoxton, London, on 10 April 1779. He was educated at a private school in Stockwell and then articled to Daniel Asher Alexander, architect of the London Docks, for whom he worked for several years as clerk of the works. He became a student at the Royal Academy in 1796.

In 1800 he won second prize in a competition for a scheme of improvements to the city of Aberdeen and five years later came first in a competition to rebuild the Ormond Bridge over the Liffey in Dublin, which had been swept away by a storm. The project was delayed, and it was decided instead to build the new bridge about 50 metres west of the destroyed one. Savage exhibited his design for the new location as Richmond Bridge forming the approach to the Four Courts, Dublin at the Royal Academy in 1809. A three-arched bridge built of granite, with cast-iron balustrades, it was constructed in 1813–16. Originally named after the Duke of Richmond, it is now known as the O'Donovan Rossa Bridge. In 1815 Savage won a competition to design a river-crossing at Tempsford in Bedfordshire with another three arched bridge.

In 1819 his plans for the new parish church of St Luke, Chelsea were chosen from among more than 40 submissions. It was an ambitious building, costing £40,000 and designed to accommodate 2,500 people. He designed it in imitation of the Gothic churches of the 14th and 15th centuries, with solid stone vaulting supported by flying buttresses;Charles Locke Eastlake described it as "probably the only church of its time in which the main roof was groined throughout in stone". Savage originally intended the tower to have an open spire, like that of Wren's St Dunstan-in-the-East, but this was forbidden by the Board of Trade. Eastlake, writing in the 1870s, criticised the building for its "machine made look" and " the cold formality of its arrangement". Savage designed several other, less ambitious Gothic churches, and one, St James, Bermondsey, in a Classical style.

He submitted designs for the new London Bridge to a committee of the House of Commons in 1823. He told the committee that he had used the same principles in designing the arches that he had in the vaults of St Luke, Chelsea, where, he said, there had not been "the slightest settlement in any part of the building, nor even a thread opening in any of the joints of the courses to indicate any strain or inequality of pressure." The committee gave his design a positive reception, but chose one by John Rennie instead on the casting vote of the chairman.

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