he showed independence on occasions, and criticised adversely the conservative land bill of 1896, and joined the nationalists in 1897 in denouncing the financial relations between England and Ireland as unjust to the smaller country. In regard to South African policy he was in sympathy with Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. In 1897-8 he visited South Africa., with other members of Parliament, to attend the opening of the Bechuanaland railway, and made several stirring speeches from the English point of view upon the vexed questions which were then disturbing the South African colonies and were leading towards war. On the political platform outside the House of Commons both in England and Ireland Saunderson proved a formidable champion of the Irish union. On 31 May 1894 he took part in an adjourned debate on home rule at the Oxford Union, answering a speech by Mr. John Dillon of the week before. The proposal in favour of home rule was defeated by 344 to 182. He threw himself with enthusiasm into the work of the Orange lodges and was grand master at Belfast from 1901 to 1903.
Saunderson was made a privy councillor in 1898 and lord-lieutenant of Cavan in 1900. In private life his ardent spiritual aspirations never diminished his natural humour nor his love of recreation. He was a capable artist and caricaturist, and maay spirited sketches of his parliamentary associates are of historic value. He continued to the last to design and build boats which held their own with the best yachts on Lough Erne. He shot and played billiards and latterly golf. A serious illness in 1904 impaired his health. He died at Castle Saimderson on 21 Oct. 1906, and was buried in the churchyard in his park. He married on 22 June 1865 Helena Emily, youngest daughter of Thomas de Moleyns, third Lord Ventry. He left four sons and one daughter, of whom the eldest son Somerset (late captain, king's royal rifles) succeeded to the property. In 1907 three of his religious addresses were published under the title 'Present and Everlasting Salvation,' with a preface by J. B. Crozier, then bishop of Ossory. A portrait by Edwin Long, R.A., painted in 1890, belongs to Mr. Burdett-Coutts, together with a crayon drawing by R. Ponsonby Staples dated 1899. Another portrait by H. Harris Brown is at Castle Saunderson. A statue by (Sir) William Goscombe John, subscribed for by the public, was unveiled at Portadown in 1910.
[Reginald Lucas's Colonel Saunderson : a Memoir, 1908; The Times, 22 Oct. 1906; H. W. Lucy's Home Rule Parliament, 1892–5, and The Salisbury Parliament, 1895-1900.]
SAVAGE-ARMSTRONG, GEORGE FRANCIS (1845–1906), poet, born at Rathfarnham, co. Dublin, on 5 May 1845, was the third son of Edmund John Armstrong of Wicklow and Dublin and Jane, daughter of the Rev. Henry Savage of Glastry, co. Down, of the family of the Savages of the Ards. Edmund John Armstrong, the poet [q. v.], was his elder brother. After some early education in Jersey, he made a pedestrian tour in France with his brother Edmund in 1862, and in later years he tramped through many other continental countries. He matriculated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1862, won the vice-chancellor's prize for an English poem on Circassia, and graduated B.A. in 1869. In 1869 he published his first volume of verse, 'Poems Lyrical and Dramatic' (2nd edit, 1872), and in the following year 'Ugone : a Tragedy' (2iia edit. 1872), a work largely written in Italy. In 1870 he was appointed professor of history and English literature in Queen's College, Cork. The hon. degree of M.A. was conferred upon him by Trinity College in 1872, and in the same year
he issued ’King Saul,' the first part of his 'Tragedy of Israel.' ’King David' and 'King Solomon,' the second and third parts of his trilogy, followed in 1874 and 1876, and in 1877 he brought out an edition of his brother's 'Poems,' following it up with a collection of that writer's 'Essays' and 'Life and Letters.' A journey to Greece and Italy in 1881 led to the publication of his verses entitled 'Garland from Greece' (1882). He was made a fellow of the Royal University (1881), and in 1891 received the honorary degree of D.Litt. from the Queen's University. In 1892 the board of Trinity College commissioned him to write the tercentenary ode, which was set to music by Sir Robert Prescott Stewart [q. v.] and performed with success during the tercentenary celebrations of the summer of 1892.
In 1891, on the death of a maternal aunt, Armstrong assumed the additional surname of Savage. He continued his duties as professor at Cork and as examiner at the Royal University in Dublin until 1905. He died on 24 July 1906 at Strangford House, Strangford, co. Down.
Savage-Armstrong, who in fertility stands almost alone among Irish poets, continued publishing verse till near his death. His latest work was for the most part his best. He wrote of nature with fresh
