Frederick Savage (engineer)

Frederick Savage (3 March 1828 – 27 April 1897) was an English engineer and inventor.

Savage is most notable as a chief innovator in the field of steam powered fairground machinery and later as mayor of Kings Lynn, Norfolk. He was the inventor of a system for running fairground carousels using a horizontally-mounted steam engine at its centre. His carousels were exported all over the world. By 1870, he was manufacturing carousels with velocipedes (an early type of bicycle) and he soon began experimenting with other possibilities, including a roundabout with boats that would pitch and roll on cranks with a circular motion, a ride he called 'Sea-on-Land'.

Savage applied a similar innovation to the more traditional mount of the horse; he installed gears and offset cranks on the platform carousels, thus giving the animals their well-known up-and-down motion as they travelled around the center pole – the "galloping horse". The platform served as a position guide for the bottom of the pole and as a place for people to walk or other stationary animals or chariots to be placed. He called this ride the 'Platform Gallopers'. He also developed the 'platform-slide' which allowed the mounts to swing out concentrically as the carousel built up speed.