Recently, I had to visit the Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages to obtain documentation to acquire my passport for this trip.  In the envelope with my birth certificate was an assortment of photos and hand-drawn family tree containing the information.  All attempts to locate the source of this information have been unsuccessful. I have verified as much of the information as possible and present this information. Often biographers disagree on details of their subject’s lives, most academic treatments of the man known as Doc Savage refer to him as Clark Savage Jnr, but Philip Jose Farmer’s biography refers to his true identity as James Clarke Wildman Jnr. Can these two stances be reconciled? To add further confusion to the issue Farmer also referred to Doc Savage’s father as being known as James Wilder.

This next photo is of William Clayton and his secretary James Wilder taken from a profile of Clayton which appeared in the Jan 1900 issue of The Strand Magazine. Philip Jose Farmer revealed William Clayton, 6th Duke of Greystoke, had an affair with The Scarlet Pimpernel’s granddaughter, Patricia Clarke Wildman. This union bore one child, James Clarke Wildman.  Although Clayton offered to marry her, Patricia refused to marry him, fearing that her family history of attempting to recreate the experiments of Victor Frankenstein would damage Clayton’s political ambitions. What Farmer was unaware of was that Patricia Clarke Wildman had fallen in love with Richard Henry Savage, who is the subject of the second photo.  Richard Henry Savage was an adventurer, author, and soldier of fortune. Savage adopted Patricia’s son, who was now legally James Clarke Savage.  James Savage looked to Richard Savage as his father.  It was later in life that James contacted his biological father, seeking to hide out, and so changed his name to James Wilder.   Due to the events recorded by John H. Watson as “The Adventure of the Priory school,” the newly married James Clarke Wildman was forced to flee Sherlock Holmes and changed his name to Clark James Savage. It was whilst on the run that Clark and his wife gave birth to the man we all know as Clark Savage Jnr.

Richard Henry Savage and Patricia Clarke Wildman had only one child of their own; Patricia died in childbirth. This son was Victor Savage, top picture.  Little is known of the life of Victor except that he was murdered by his uncle Culverton Smith, who apprehended by Sherlock Holmes as recorded by John H. Watson in “The Adventure of the Dying Detective.” What Watson did not record was that Victor Savage had sent his wife and son to Queensland, Australia to live when he discovered his uncle’s evil intentions. Over the years the Savages prospered in Australia, with Victor Savage’s son John becoming a millionaire. Savage had made his fortune through his cattle property “Orion”  and with a typical Savage love of adventure designed and built the yacht Astradora and sailed around the world. The picture of John Savage is taken from the society page of The Globe newspaper during his final trip to England. Sadly Savage was murdered, although at the time his death was ruled a suicide.    

The Savage love of adventure seen in Richard Henry and John Savage manifested itself in the current generation of Savages, with John’s granddaughter Sydney Savage joining firstly ASIO and then the freelance operation known as Danger Girl.  In spite of all of my efforts to obtain a photographs or Sydney’s records through my contacts in the intelligence community, I was repeatedly told that neither of these were possible due to the Official Secrets Act (Australia) 1975, where photographs of active agents are unable to be released for security reasons.  I have used this artist’s representation by J. Scott Campbell.