‘Fred’ Savage was born in Liverpool, England, in October 1895. The only child to John Savage and Alice Austin, Fred grew up little over half a mile from the home ground of Football League foundation club Everton, who had lifted the FA Cup in 1906.
Fred was 16 years of age when he arrived with his parents in Fremantle in April 1912. The family settled in Geraldton where Fred spent his week working as a labourer and when the weekend rolled around he represented the Thistle club on the football field during the 1915 season.
In June of that same year Fred enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces, serving as a Private in the 11th Battalion. His time on the Gallipoli Peninsula was short; about five weeks after landing he was hospitalised with diarrhoea and by the first week of December he had been transferred to a hospital ship suffering debility and frostbite. Two months later he was invalided to Australia to recover from enteric fever.
Fred embarked from Fremantle again in July 1916, this time to join the war effort in France and Belgium. Soon after transferring to the 51st Battalion in November, he was promoted to Lance Corporal. It is likely he participated in the advance that followed the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line in early 1917 as well as the battles of Messines and Polygon Wood later in the year.
The 51st Battalion were involved in fighting at Dernancourt in March 1918 and late the following month played a major role in dislodging the Germans from Villers-Bretonneux. Granted five months leave with pay in May 1919, Fred returned to England where he married Liverpool-born milliner Elizabeth Savage in June.
In November 1919 the newlyweds relocated to Australia where, six months later, they welcomed the arrival of their first daughter, Ivy, while living in Subiaco. Fred was teaching at South Greenough, just outside Geraldton, when his second child Norah, 3, tragically drowned in a well in their garden during the winter of 1924.
Wilfred Savage passed away in Geraldton on 12 October, 1951, at the age of 56.