Savile "2-dus" Morton

In the Bible from which this information comes, Saville's name is followed by : (2 dus). I assume that since the first "Saville" died in infancy, "2 dus" is an abbreviation for "Secundus"--not actually a middle name. Born at 9:00 am at Exmouth, Devon. Privately baptized on 19 August by Rev. C. Glasscott, Curate of Littleham and Exmouth.

According to the record of Alumni of Cambridge University, Savile was admitted as a pensioner June 24, 1830; Matric. Michs. 1830; Scholar, 1833. B.A. (22nd Wrangler)1834. Admitted at the Inner Temple, May 2, 1838. He is also described as a friend of Tennyson, Thackery, Edward Fitzgerald. A "Painter, Journalist, Lover." (His sister Elizabeth Charlotte's husband, Gabriel-Emile Condreux, of Tours, was a witness in the trial of Elliot Bower, "a jealous husband," accused of murdering Savile in Paris in October of 1852. The Dictionary of National Biography describes him as "Journalist and Philanderer." Well.

From The Cambridge Apostles, 1820-1914: liberalism, imagination, and friendship by William C. Lubenow

When the Apostles entered the literary world, therefore, they sought accomplishment and respectability, but, in so doing, they risked life among the lurid and the louche. The curious case of Savile Morton demonstrates this.

Morton came to Trinity from Ireland and became an Apostle in 1832 along with George Stoven Venables and Charles Merivale. He took his BA as Twenty-second Wrangler in 1834 and then went to Constantinople as a foreign correspondent for the Daily News. He took similar posts at Athens, Madrid, Vienna and, Finally, Paris. Morton made no attempt to conceal his political feelings during the revolutions of 1848. ‘He was an ardent liberal and wrote boldly and constantly in support of political progress’, the expression of which views brought him into conflict with Louis Napoleon’s government.

Morton enmeshed himself in various forms of personal strife. In England he challenged Forbes Campbell to a duel after trading insults over a woman. Morton consulted with his fellow Apostles—Venables, Macaulay, Spring Rice, and Monckton Milnes—about various courses of action. Campbell withdrew his offensive remarks about the woman in question; Morton apologized for the threat of violence; the seconds testified to the unimpeachable behaviour of the principals. Affairs went worse for him in Paris. There he befriended the wife of Harold Elyott Bower, a fellow journalist. According to Morton’s friends, Bower had abused his wife and, when she fell ill, failed to get medical attention for her. She called for Morton and, in a fever, confided her marital miseries to him. Enraged at Morton’s interference, Bower stabbed him to death on 1 October 1852. the French courts, naturally, acquitted Bower. Morton’s friends, understandably, saw in him nothing but chivalrous behaviour, regarding him as a victim of plots which had been excited by his political writings. It is an example of the way the life of letters and a high-minded concern for liberty coexisted with allegations of adultery.

The following account of Saville Morton's death is found in Vol. 94 of the Annual Register (or a view of the History and Politics of the year 1852) edited by Edmund Burke. It seems more objective as it relies on court documents and testimony. p.402-407. (Another account, which I have not read, is in the New York Times, January 17, 1853)

Paris, December 27 Trial of Elliott Bower for the Murder of Saville Morton. --A tragedy, arising from circumstances of a most singular and disgraceful nature, in which the parties were all English, has occurred at Paris, and has been the subject of a trial before the French tribunals.

  In 1842, Mr. Elliott Bower, a gentleman of respectable connections and highly educated, married Fanny Vickery, a widow, aged 38; by whom he had five children, the last of whom was born at Paris on the 2nd Sept. 1852. [To be continued: so she gave birth when she was 48?]