d to the end of
his varied life. But these honours had yet to come. Already, at the
time of which we are now writing, Mr. Savin had visions of a larger
enterprise beyond the boundaries of his native borough.

Like many large and generous-hearted men, Mr. Savin was very impetuous
and impatient of delays. On one occasion, it is related, when still a
mercer at Oswestry, he drove over to a Welsh border market town to sell
his wares. It was the custom there for farmers to decline to look at any
other business till the sale of the live stock was disposed of, and the
market being loth to start and Mr. Savin eager to be home again, he
rushed into the arena and startled the company present by buying a
thousand sheep. This was before he became associated with railway
pioneering, but it is a characteristic example of that dramatic
impulsiveness which led to his subsequent success--and failure.

Caught by the spirit of venture and enthusiasm, which had swept over the
country after the successful opening of the Manchester and Liverpool
Railway in 1830, his thoughts had begun to turn to railway production,
and the meeting with the young Montgomeryshire road and bridge builder
opened the looked for door. In a room over the tobacconist shop now
occupied by Mr. Richards, opposite the Post Office, in Church Street,
Oswestry, and close to the premises in which, some fifteen or sixteen
years earlier another notable man, Shirley Brooks, afterwards editor of
"Punch," had toiled as a lawyer's article pupil to his uncle, Mr. Charles
Sabine, Mr. Davies and Mr. Savin were brought together by Mr. George
Owen, himself destined to play no small part in the planning of the
Cambrian. A man of Kent, native of Tunbridge Wells, Mr. Owen had begun
his business career in the office of Mr. Charles Mickleburgh, land
surveyor, agent and enclosure commissioner, of Montgomery, one of whose
daughters he subsequently married. He worked side by side with another
young engineer, of whom we shall hear more presently,--Mr. Benjamin
Piercy, under whose initial leadership, Mr. Owen, as resident engineer,
was to serve the local railway for many a long year. Nor was that the
only capacity in which his gifts were displayed. Making Oswestry his
home, he became a member of the Town Council in 1860, mayor in 1864 and
1865, and alderman in 1874. For twenty years he was a member of the
General Purposes Committee, served as borough and county magistrate, and
was a