Died 1993 | ||
Major Richard Gabriel Akinwande Savage (1903 - 1993) was a medical doctor, soldier, and first person of West African heritage to receive a British Army commission.
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Earl life and family
He was born in 1903 at 15 Buccleugh Place, in Edinburgh, Scotland of mixed ancestry to the prominent Nigerian doctor Richard Akinwande Savage who married a Scotswoman, Maggie Bowie. His sister, Agnes Yewande Savage, also played a pioneering role as the first West African woman to qualify as a medical doctor.
Education
Savage studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduated (MB, ChB) in 1926, and received his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant on September 23, 1940, making him the first West African to be commissioned an officer in the British Army (Seth Anthony of Ghana, has been incorrectly referenced as the first West African to receive a commission in the British Army). He served as a medical doctor in the Asian Theater of World World 2, specifically in Burma where he tended to wounded soldiers from Britain's contingent. Among the soldiers that Savage treated in the Burma was Isaac Fadoyebo, a wounded Nigerian soldier in the Royal West African Frontier Force, who recounted the quality of care that Savage provided to him and other West African soldiers.