Background
Savile was the son of John Savile, 3rd Earl of Mexborough, and Lady Anne, daughter of Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke.
Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom
Savile was the son of John Savile, 3rd Earl of Mexborough, and Lady Anne, daughter of Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke.
Eton College; Trinity College.
At Eton between 1821 and 1826, he was renowned for his abilities in the classics, and also enjoyed boxing. Savile was said to have entertained contemporaries at one boxing match by "strutting around the ring, spouting Homer" between rounds. From there he went to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1827-1828.
At the time of his election he was under-age but Parliament did not meet until after his 21st birthday.
Pollington voted consistently against the Reform Bill and also voted to end the grant to the Roman Catholic Maynooth College. Gatton was among the boroughs disfranchised by the Reform Acting, and Pollington did not attempt to find an alternative constituency at the 1832 general election.
After leaving Parliament, Pollington went on an extensive foreign tour of Russia, Persia and India. In 1834 he joined his Eton contemporary Alexander William Kinglake on an expedition through the Ottoman Empire.
Kinglake"s novel "Eothen" includes a character called Methley who is based on Pollington: Methley is a knowledgeable classical scholar with "the practical sagacity of a Yorkshireman".
Pollington sat out the Parliament of 1837-1841, and took the opportunity to travel through eastern Anatolia in June 1838. His journal from this trip was published as "Notes on a Journey from Erẓ-Rúm.. to Aleppo" in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1841. On his return to Britain, Pollington again represented Pontefract between 1841 and 1847.
He was nominated as a candidate in a byelection in the borough in 1851, in his absence and without his knowledge.
Tragically Pollington"s first wife died in June 1854. In 1860 he succeeded his father in the earldom.
However, as this was an Irish peerage it did not entitle him to a seat in the House of Lords. Lord Mexborough survived her by only a few months and died in Brighton in August 1899, aged 89.
At the time of his death he was the last survivor from the unreformed House of Commons.
10th United Kingdom Parliament. 12th United Kingdom Parliament. 14th United Kingdom Parliament]
He impressed his friends enough to be twice fictionalised, and at his death he was the last surviving person to have been a member of the House of Commons before the passing of the Reform Acting.
Pollington returned to Britain in 1835, in time for his election as Member of Parliament for Pontefract as a supporter of Sir Robert Peel at the general election.