Levett

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Bookplate of the Rev. Thomas Levett, Arms of Levett impaling Gresley, Packington Hall, Staffordshire Thomas Levett bookplate.jpg
Bookplate of the Rev. Thomas Levett, Arms of Levett impaling Gresley, Packington Hall, Staffordshire

Levett is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin, deriving from [de] Livet, which is held particularly by families and individuals resident in England and British Commonwealth territories.

Contents

Origins

Assembled partygoers at Tranby Croft, 11 September 1890. The Royal baccarat scandal. Pictured are Capt. Berkeley Levett and Edward, Prince of Wales and others. RoyalBaccaratScandal.jpg
Assembled partygoers at Tranby Croft, 11 September 1890. The Royal baccarat scandal. Pictured are Capt. Berkeley Levett and Edward, Prince of Wales and others.

This surname comes from the village of Livet-en-Ouche, now Jonquerets-de-Livet, in Eure, Normandy. Here the de Livets were undertenants of the de Ferrers family, among the most powerful of William the Conqueror's Norman lords. [1] The name Livet (first recorded as Lived in the 11th century), of Gaulish etymology, may mean a "place where yew-trees grow". [2] [3]

The first de Livet in England, Roger, appears in Domesday as a tenant of the Norman magnate Henry de Ferrers. de Livet held land in Leicestershire, and was, along with Ferrers, a benefactor of Tutbury Priory. [4] By about 1270, when the Dering Roll was crafted to display the coats of arms of 324 of England's most powerful lords, the coat of arms of Robert Livet, Knight, was among them. [5] Some Levetts were early knights and Crusaders; many members of both English and French families were Knights Hospitallers, [6] and served as courtiers. [7]

English Levetts

A Levett family settled in Derbyshire was extinct by the early sixteenth century. [8] A family of the name resident in Sussex at Warbleton and Salehurst [9] also held the manor of Firle [10] until it passed from family control in 1440 due to the debts of Thomas Levett, [11] whose bankruptcy also necessitated the loss of Catsfield, East Sussex. Sussex deeds indicate instances of 'Levetts' attached to place names, indicating possession by individuals and families of that name. [12] [13] [14] In 1620, John Levett, of Sedlescombe, Sussex, was forced by financial hardship to sell his half-interest in Bodiam Castle, inherited family land and property across Sussex and Kent, including at Ewhurst, Salehurst, Battle, Sussex and Hawkhurst, Kent, to Sir Thomas Dyke, for £1000; this represented the end of these Levetts as prominent landowners. [15]

Families of the name Levett (also Levet, Lyvet, Levytt, [16] Livett, Delivett, Levete, Leavett, Leavitt, [17] Lovett and others) would subsequently settle in Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, [18] Worcestershire, Suffolk, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Kent, Bedfordshire and Staffordshire.

By the mid twentieth century, only two prominent Levett families remained; that of Milford Hall, Staffordshire and that formerly of Wychnor Hall, Staffordshire (and Packington Hall). [19] [20] Milford Hall passed in the female line to the Haszard family, [21] and Wychnor Park was sold by the Levetts to Lt-Col W. E. Harrison in 1913, this later becoming a country club. [22]

The Levett-Scrivener family (descending from a daughter of the Milford Hall family) retains the ruin of Sibton Abbey, which they have made available to historical societies and researchers; [23] the Levett-Prinseps (a branch of the Wychnor Park family) were unable to maintain Croxall Hall; it was sold in 1920 and the estate was broken up. [24]

By 1871, although family tradition of a common ancestor of the Milford Hall and Wychnor Park Levett families was mentioned in the latter pedigree, the earliest listed ancestors of each family were, respectively, William Levett of Savernake, Wiltshire, page to King Charles I at the time of his death in 1649, and Theophilus Levett, who died 1746. [25] Even the 1847 edition, produced at a time when Burke's publications were inclusive of vague, unproven 'family traditions' (a practice subsequently widely criticised), [26] [27] makes no mention of any earlier ancestors or Norman origin in either family's pedigree. [28]

Capt. Levett Landon Boscawen Ibbetson, descendant of merchant Francis Levett, dueling in a trilobite exoskeleton. Drawn by his friend Gideon Mantell, fellow member of The Royal Society Dueling GideonAlgernonMantell.jpeg
Capt. Levett Landon Boscawen Ibbetson, descendant of merchant Francis Levett, dueling in a trilobite exoskeleton. Drawn by his friend Gideon Mantell, fellow member of The Royal Society

Individuals of the name of Levett (and its variants) appear in all social strata: John Levett, a guard on the London to Brighton coach, was convicted of petty theft and transported to Australia in the nineteenth century; English records reveal Levetts embroiled in bastardy cases or relegated to poorhouses. [29] A Francis Levett was a factor living in Livorno, Italy, travelling back and forth to Constantinople for the Levant Company. He subsequently failed at British East Florida as a planter; his son Francis Jr. returned to America, where he became the first to grow Sea Island cotton. [30]

The execution of King Charles I of England, to which he was accompanied on the scaffold by courtier William Levett, Esq. The execution of King Charles I from NPG.jpg
The execution of King Charles I of England, to which he was accompanied on the scaffold by courtier William Levett, Esq.

A notable individual of the name was the unschooled Yorkshireman who, having worked as a Parisian waiter, then trained as an apothecary. Robert Levet returned to England, where he treated denizens of London's seedier neighbourhoods. Having married an apparent grifter and prostitute, Levet was taken in by the poet Samuel Johnson. [31] While Samuel Johnson adopted one Levet as boarder, he was apologizing to another better-placed Levett who held the mortgage on Johnson's mother's home in Lichfield. [32]

Levetts elsewhere

Sign for Buxted, Sussex, commemorating first iron cannon cast in the Weald by iron foundry of Parson William Levett BuxtedSign.jpg
Sign for Buxted, Sussex, commemorating first iron cannon cast in the Weald by iron foundry of Parson William Levett

Today there are many Levetts (the spelling of the name varies) living outside England, including in South Africa, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, [33] [34] Canada, and Ireland.

In a few cases Levetts were forced by religious belief to flee England for the colonies. Among these were tailor John Leavitt and farmer Thomas Leavitt, early English Puritan immigrants to Massachusetts and New Hampshire, respectively, whose names first appear in seventeenth-century New England records as Levet or Levett.[ citation needed ]

People surnamed Levett

Individuals bearing the surname of Levett include:

Places named after Levett families and individuals

Hops token, 30 bushels, Exden Hop Farm, Newenden, Kent, Charles Levett, 1865 LevettHopsToken.jpg
Hops token, 30 bushels, Exden Hop Farm, Newenden, Kent, Charles Levett, 1865
Ruins of Levitstown Mill, County Kildare, Ireland Reflections of the Past.jpg
Ruins of Levitstown Mill, County Kildare, Ireland

Places associated with Levett families or individuals

These places are or were associated with Levett families or individuals:

In media

Coat of arms of Lord Mayor of London Sir Richard Levett. Strype's Survey of London, 1720 RichardLevettArms.jpg
Coat of arms of Lord Mayor of London Sir Richard Levett. Strype's Survey of London, 1720

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whittington, Staffordshire</span> Village in Staffordshire, England

Whittington is a village and civil parish which lies approximately 3 miles south east of Lichfield, in the Lichfield district of Staffordshire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 2,591, increasing to 2,603 at the 2011 Census. The parish council is a joint one with Fisherwick. The Coventry Canal borders the village to the north and east.

This is a list of the sheriffs and high sheriffs of Staffordshire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gresley baronets</span> Title in the Baronetage of England

The Baronetcy of Gresley of Drakelow was created in the Baronetage of England on 29 June 1611 for George Gresley of Drakelow Hall, Derbyshire who was later High Sheriff of Derbyshire and Member of Parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Milford Hall</span>

Milford Hall is a privately owned 18th-century English country house at Milford, near Stafford. It is the family seat of the Levett Haszard family and is a Grade II listed building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wychnor Hall</span>

Wychnor Hall is Grade II Listed early 18th-century country house near Burton on Trent, Staffordshire, formerly owned by the Levett Family. The hall has been converted to a Country Club.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theophilus John Levett</span> British politician (1829–1899)

Colonel Theophilus John Levett was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom, who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Lichfield from 1880 to 1885.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hooton Levitt</span> Village and civil parish in South Yorkshire, England

Hooton Levitt is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England; one of four villages in the county that carry the name of Hooton, meaning 'farmstead on a spur of land'. It has a population of 110, increasing to 132 at the 2011 Census.

Thomas Levett, was an Oxford-educated Lincoln's Inn barrister, judge of the Admiralty for the Northern Counties and High Sheriff of Rutland. But Levett's chief accomplishment was as antiquarian, preserving a centuries-old chartulary kept by Cluniac monks at their Pontefract, Yorkshire abbey, and then turning it over to Yorkshire medieval scholar Roger Dodsworth for publication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zachary Babington</span> English barrister

Zachary Babington was an English barrister who served as High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1713 and 1724.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Levett</span> English landowner, investor, and Tory politician

John Levett of Wychnor Park, Staffordshire, was an English landowner and investor, and a Tory politician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Packington Hall, Staffordshire</span>

Packington Hall in Staffordshire was an English country house designed by architect James Wyatt in the 18th century. Originally built for the Babington family, it became the home of the Levett family of Wychnor Hall, in that same county, until the first half of the twentieth century. The Levetts had ties to Whittington, Staffordshire and nearby Hopwas for many years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Levett (priest)</span>

Rev. Thomas Levett served as rector of Whittington, Staffordshire, for 40 years, and as a large landowner in addition to being a clergyman, played a role in the development of Staffordshire's educational system. He was also a member of one of Staffordshire's longest-serving families in ecclesiastical circles, having produced three rectors of the parish of Whittington. The Levett family also produced members of parliament, High Sheriffs of Staffordshire, Lichfield town recorders and businessmen who were friends and contemporaries of Samuel Johnson, Erasmus Darwin, writer Anna Seward, actor David Garrick and other local luminaries. Several streets in Lichfield are named for the family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Levett (courtier)</span>

William Levett, Esq., was a long serving courtier to King Charles I of England. Levett accompanied the King during his flight from Parliamentary forces, including his escape from Hampton Court palace, and eventually to his imprisonment in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, and finally to the scaffold on which he was executed. Following the King's death, Levett wrote a letter claiming that he had witnessed the King writing the so-called Eikon Basilike during his imprisonment, an allegation that produced a flurry of new claims about the disputed manuscript and flamed a growing movement to rehabilitate the image of the executed monarch.

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Sibton Abbey, an early Cistercian abbey located near Yoxford, Suffolk, was founded about 1150 by William de Chesney, High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk. A sister house of Warden Abbey, near Bedford, Bedfordshire, Sibton Abbey was the only Cistercian abbey in East Anglia. It was dissolved in 1536.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Egerton Bagot Byrd Levett-Scrivener</span> British Navy lieutenant

Captain Egerton Bagot Byrd Levett-Scrivener (1857–1954) was a Royal Navy Flag Lieutenant and aide to Vice Admiral George Willes in the Far East. He was later promoted to Captain, and following his retirement became Bursar of Keble College, University of Oxford. Born Egerton Levett, he changed his name to Levett-Scrivener on an inheritance from his aunt of Scrivener family properties at Sibton Abbey, Suffolk, which he later managed. Levett was married to the daughter of English diplomat and ambassador Sir Harry Smith Parkes.

Thomas Levett-Prinsep was an English landowner in Derbyshire and Staffordshire. He took on the additional name of Prinsep on inheriting his uncle's holding of Croxall Hall.

Rev. Ralph Levett was an English Anglican minister who served as domestic chaplain to an aristocratic family from Lincolnshire with Puritan sympathies, who subsequently installed him as rector of a local parish. A graduate of Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became a protégé of the prominent Puritan minister John Cotton, Levett later married the sister of the wife of his friend Rev. John Wheelwright, another well-known early Puritan settler of New England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Levett (baron)</span>

William Levett was lord of the manor of the South Yorkshire village of Hooton Levitt, a village named in part for his ancestors, and became the owner of the patronage of Roche Abbey on marriage to the granddaughter of the Abbey's cofounder Richard FitzTurgis, a Norman baron who co-founded Roche with the great-nephew of one of England's most powerful Norman barons, Roger de Busli.

References

Notes

  1. The Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families, David C. Douglas, Lewis C. Loyd, 1951. New edition, (1980). Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company. ISBN   0-8063-0649-1
  2. François de Beaurepaire, Les noms des communes et anciennes paroisses de L'Eure, éditions Picard 1981. p. 136.
  3. Albert Dauzat and Charles Rostaing, Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de lieux en France, Librairie Guénégaud 1979. p. 406.
  4. Keats-Rohan, K.S.B. (1999). Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents, 1066-1166. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. ISBN   9780851157221 . Retrieved 2011-04-11.
  5. Foster, Joseph (1902). Some Feudal Coats of Arms from Heraldic Rolls. London: James Parker & Co. p.  155 . Retrieved 2011-05-04. robert livett feudal coats of arms.
  6. Kerdu, Pierre Marie Louis de Boisgelin de (1805). Ancient and modern Malta, as also, the history of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. 2. London. p. 310.
  7. Ashburnham, J.; Ashburnham, G.A. (1830). A Narrative by John Ashburnham of His Attendance on King Charles the First from Oxford to the Scotch Army, and from Hampton-Court to the Isle of Wight ...: To which is Prefixed a Vindication of His Character ... and Conduct, from the Misrepresentations of Lord Clarendon. Vol. 1. Payne and Foss. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  8. "General history: Gentry families extinct before 1500 | British History Online".
  9. Attree, F. W. T. (1894). "List of Sussex Gentry at Various Dates, with Descriptions of the Arms of a Few Families not previously noticed". Sussex Archaeological Collections. 39: 122. doi: 10.5284/1086058 .
  10. Way, Albert (1851). "Examples of Mediaeval Seals" (PDF). The Archaeological Journal. 8: 78. doi:10.1080/00665983.1851.10850815. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  11. "Debts of Thomas Lyvet, West Firle, Chancery Records, The National Archives". nationalarchives.gov.uk. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  12. "Archive of the Gage Family of Firle, 1255–1849, East Sussex Record Office, The National Archives". nationalarchives.gov.uk. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  13. "Ashburnham family archives: deeds, 1200–1836, East Sussex Record Office, The National Archives". nationalarchives.gov.uk. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  14. "Ashburnham family archive: Deeds (ASH/4501)".
  15. Battle Abbey; Phillipps, T.; Webster, G.V.; Thorpe, Thomas, firm, booksellers, London (1835). Descriptive Catalogue of the Original Charters, Royal Grants, and Donations ... Monastic Chartulary, Official, Manorial, Court Baron, Court Leet, and Rent Rolls, Registers, and Other Documents: Constituting the Muniments of Battle Abbey ... Comprising, Also, a Great Mass of Papers Relating to the Family of Browne, Ennobled as the Lords Viscount Montague ... with Various Others Relating to the Sidneys, Earls of Leicester, and the Whole of the Webster Family Evidences, Embodying Many Highly Interesting and Valuable Records of Manor Lands in Sussex, Kent, and Essex ... The Whole Bound in Ninety-seven Volumes, Folio ... Price Twelve Hundred Pounds. Thomas Thorpe. p. 150. Retrieved 2017-01-07.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  16. Cooper, W. Durrant; Ross, Thomas (1862). "Notices of Hastings and its Municipal Rights". Sussex Archaeological Collections. 14: 96. doi: 10.5284/1085251 . ISSN   0143-8204.
  17. Dictionary of American Family Names. Oxford University Press. ISBN   0-19-508137-4 . Retrieved 2017-01-07 via ancestry.com.
  18. Miscellanea Genealogica Et Heraldica. Hamilton, Adams, and Company. 1896. p. 82. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  19. Burke's Landed Gentry, 17th edition, ed. L. G. Pine, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1952, pp. 1184, 1517
  20. Burke's Family Index, ed. Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1976, pp. 104, 125
  21. Burke's Landed Gentry, 17th edition, ed. L. G. Pine, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1952, p. 1184
  22. "Durham Mining Museum - W. E. Harrison, Lt.-Col., O.B.E., D.L., J.P., C.C."
  23. Hope, W. H. St. J. (1892). "Sibton Abbey" (PDF). Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History. 8 (1): 54. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  24. "Edingale Village" (PDF).
  25. A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. Sir Bernard Burke, 1871, vol. II, pp. 785-786
  26. A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Colonial Gentry, Sir Bernard Burke, ed. Ashworth P. Burke, Harrison & Sons, London, 1895, p. 878 (end matter p. 2)
  27. Time magazine, 'Twentieth Century Squires', 10 Dec 1951
  28. A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, 1st edition, vol. I- A to L, John Burke and John Bernard Burke, 1847, pp. 724-725
  29. "John Levett of Lewes, Newspaper Accounts of Trials 1842 & 1845, Rootschat.com". rootschat.com. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  30. "Julianton Plantation, English Plantations on the St Johns River, Florida History Online". unf.edu. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  31. Johnson, S.; Murphy, A.; Chalmers, A. (1810). Essay on the life ... Poems. Luke Hansard & Sons. p. 342. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  32. Boswell, J. (1799). The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Comprehending an Account of His Studies and Numerous Works, ... By James Boswell, Esq. H. Baldwin and Son. p. 134. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  33. "What's in a Name? Wychnor, A New Zealand Story, Stephanie Boot". hips-roots.com. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  34. "Herbert Cuthbert Levett, The Cyclopedia of New Zealand, Victoria University of Wellington". nzetc.org. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  35. "Portrait of Ada Elizabeth Levett, Staff of St Hilda's College, Oxford, National Portrait Gallery, npg.org.uk". npg.org.uk. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  36. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Royal Irish Academy, Hodges, Figgis & Co., Dublin, 1908
  37. The 'Johanna, Countess of Pembroke,' named in this muniment is Isabel de Clare, 4th Countess of Pembroke, as the identification of her husband William Marshall makes clear.
  38. John Leavitt's Family Gathers in Hingham for his 400th Birthday, The Patriot Ledger, June 30, 2008 Archived October 15, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  39. Boston (Mass.). Registry Dept; Whitmore, W.H.; Appleton, W.S.; McGlenen, E.W.; Watkins, W.K. (1900). Records Relating to the Early History of Boston ... Rockwell and Churchill, City Printers. p. 139. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  40. "Photo of Letter from Erasmus Darwin to Matthew Boulton, 1766, concerning Boulton's plans to dine with John Levett, revolutionaryplayers.org". Archived from the original on 2010-08-08. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  41. Lord Mayor Richard Levett was elected a member of the New England Company in 1698.
  42. "First Lady of Racing Also a Gifted Author, The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 August 2008". smh.com.au. 16 August 2008. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  43. "Stories by S. Levett Yeats, The New York Times, April 15, 1899" (PDF). query.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  44. Packington Hall, home of Rev. Thomas Levett, Whittington, Staffordshire, ca 1900 Archived 2008-12-19 at the Wayback Machine
  45. Burke, J. (1851). The Royal Families of England, Scotland, and Wales, with Their Descendants, Sovereigns and Subjects: By John Burke & John Bernard Burke. In Two Volumes. Churton. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  46. Williams, A.; Mallett, W.H. (1899). Mansions and Country Seats of Staffordshire and Warwickshire: A Series of Descriptive Articles. F. Brown. pp. 1–64. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  47. Richard FitzTurgis Charter for Roche Abbey, 30 July 1147, The Foundation Charters of Roche, cistercians.shef.ac.uk
  48. The Parliamentary Papers reported a certificate of Archbishop Juxon that "the bearer William Levett was one of the five persons whom his late Majesty (Charles I) the day before his death did, in consideration of his loyalty and faithful service, recommend to the care and provision of his present Majesty."
  49. Beer and Biscuits, cottagepublications.com Archived 2008-12-19 at the Wayback Machine
  50. "View of Levitstown from the River Barrow". kildare.ie. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  51. ""Barrow boys", The Guardian, London, 21 August 2003". theguardian.com. 21 August 2003. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  52. Fitz-Gerald, C.W.; Kildare (earls of) (1858). The earls of Kildare and their ancestors, from 1057 to 1773. [With] Addenda. p. 101. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  53. Geological Survey (U.S.) (1919). Professional Paper - United States Geological Survey. The Survey. p.  14 . Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  54. Levett Blackborne, grandson of Sir Richard, sold the Levett properties at Kew to the Royal family. Blackborne was a prominent Lincoln's Inn barrister in London, Steward of the Palace of Westminster, and of the Board of Green Cloth. Blackborne was also longtime adviser to the Manners family, Dukes of Rutland, to whom he was related, likely through an illegitimate child of the Duke, as well as an early investor in British colonies in East Florida and Nova Scotia.
  55. Roche Abbey

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