Sir Richard Levett | |
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Born | |
Died | Kew, England | 20 January 1711
Resting place | St Anne's Church, Kew, Richmond-upon-Thames |
Spouses |
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Children | Elizabeth, Mary, Frances, Anne, Richard |
Parent(s) | Richard Levett Katherine Levett |
Sir Richard Levett (died 1711) was an English merchant, politician and slave trader who served as Lord Mayor of London in 1699. Born in Ashwell, Rutland, he moved to London and established a pioneering mercantile career, becoming involved with the Bank of England and the East India Company. Levett was acquainted with many prominent individuals during his time in London, among them Samuel Pepys, John Houblon, William Gore, Sir John Holt, Robert Hooke, and Charles Eyre. He acquired several properties in Kew and Cripplegate. [1]
Although born into a once-powerful Sussex Anglo-Norman family (its surname derives from the village of Livet in Normandy), the future Lord Mayor grew up in straitened circumstances after the family lost much of its medieval wealth. Levett's father was an intruding minister [2] and he was ejected in 1660 after the Restoration when the legitimate incumbent returned to the living. Although born with connections, Richard Levett and his brother Francis were thrown onto their own resources, and were as much pioneers in business as they were in society.
Despite their impressive Norman lineage, the Levett brothers were middle-class. They represented an emerging England, an England of meritocracy and hard work that trumped the old aristocratic England. (Perhaps it was not an accident that their father, Rev. Richard Levett, had Puritan sympathies.) The enterprising brothers demonstrated that through hard work, ordinary Englishmen could move into the upper-middle classes. The Levett brothers were abetted in their rise by profound changes in the evolving English economy, with trade opening and feudal privileges diminishing in favour of a growing mercantile middle class. Although Levett was a nominal Tory, he was a free market capitalist by practice. [3]
Levett and his brother Francis began as small haberdashers, trading everything from tobacco to textiles. The sons of a country parson in Rutland, the two Levett brothers imported goods into England, which they then sold to chapmen at fairs across the country, including those at Lenton, Gainsborough, Boston, Beverley and elsewhere. As the British Empire began to expand, bolstered by increasing military might, aggressive merchants like the Levetts leapfrogged other foreign and domestic competitors. From their small operation grew a behemoth, with the Levett brothers using their own ships to import everything from tobacco to linens.
Eventually, their empire became among the largest factors of its day in England, with an immense working capital estimated between £30,000 and £40,000 in 1705, buying tobacco and other goods around the world for import into the English market. The firm they set up came to embrace trade with the Levant (principally Turkey and Syria), India, Africa, the West Indies, North America, Ireland and even Russia. Contemporaneous records show Levett often immersed in the details of arranging shipping terms and trading voyages to places as disparate as French Guinea, Virginia, Maryland and elsewhere. Like many London merchants of the period, Levett was involved in the Atlantic slave trade, transporting Black slaves from French Guinea and various West African ports for sale in the English colonies of Virginia and Maryland. [4]
In 1705, for instance, Levett sent a letter to the Board of Trade and Plantations to complain about interference with his ships. "The Governors of Virginia and Maryland", Levett complained to the Board, "had refused to permit two ships of theirs to saile from those colonies with their ladings.... And it being alleged in the petition that the masters of those two ships (who came away in ballast) were obliged to give security to touch at the Maderas in their way home." The Board directed its agent to "write to the said masters at Bristol for further information in that matter." [5]
By the early eighteenth century, the firm of Sir Richard Levett and Company had become one of England's largest, dominating especially the enormous tobacco trade with the Virginia Colony, as well as the tobacco coming from Turkey. [6] Detailed records of tobacco transactions at the time between Levett and Virginia planters reveal that the London merchant drove a hard bargain. [7]
Levett eventually was named a merchant adventurer of the London East India Company, [8] one of the first directors of the new Bank of England, [9] and even, on 17 February 1698, a member of the New England Company. [10] With his deep interests in shipping, Levett was also one of the earliest investors in what became Lloyd's of London, the insurance firm. He was knighted at Kensington in 1691. [11]
In the close-knit world of London traders at the dawn of the eighteenth century, Levett often found himself acting in conjunction with, or competing against, most of the other large traders known to him. At a meeting of the Governors and adventurers of the London East India Company held on 30 April 1701, for instance, Levett found himself in the company of his fellow London traders and ranking India servants "Gov. T. Cooke, Deputy Sir Samuel Dashwood, Sir Thomas Rawlinson, Sir Jonathan Andrews, Sir John Fleet, Sir William Gore, Sir Henry Johnson, Sir William Langhorne, Sir William Prichard and Mr. Vansittart." [12]
In the year of 1695, Levett's increasingly powerful firm accounted for 3,894,864 pounds of tobacco imported into England. Of that, the firm subsequently re-exported some 1.3 million pounds to Holland, Germany and the Baltic. Acting as middlemen in an increasingly vertically integrated corporation, which was coming to resemble a modern trading company, Levett and his partners began raking in enormous profits, partly due to their access to large amounts of capital, as well as their access to a proprietary shipping fleet.
As their trading grew, Richard Levett became a prominent fixture on the London scene. He was elected Master of the Haberdashers' Company (1690 and 1691), [13] Sheriff of the City of London for 1691, an Alderman, and eventually, in 1699, Lord Mayor of London. [14] As Master of the Haberdashers' Company, Levett played a key role in building fellow Master of the Haberdashers' Company Sir Robert Aske's Hospital, with Levett's friend Robert Hooke serving as architect. [15]
From his home in Cripplegate, formerly the home of Sir Thomas Bloodworth, a previous Lord Mayor, Levett conducted his trading empire and the mayoral business. [16] Levett's home, formerly that of the controversial Bloodworth, who served as Lord Mayor at the time of the Great Fire of London, was a large mansion on the old Noble Street near Lily Pot Lane. (The home was later occupied by printer Charles Rivington.)
Also available for Levett's use were two country homes at Kew, [17] including the Dutch House (now Kew Palace), as well as the large estate surrounding them. [18] (After Levett's death, his daughter Mary Thoroton leased the Dutch House to Queen Caroline, wife of King George II, for use as a children's nursery, likely accounting for the decision of Frederick, Prince of Wales, to settle at Kew with his wife, Augusta, Princess of Wales. Both Levett homes as well as the estates surrounding them were sold to the Royal family in 1781 by Sir Richard's grandson Levett Blackborne, Esq., a prominent Lincoln's Inn barrister). [19]
Sir Richard Levett was married to Mary Crispe, likely the daughter of merchant adventurer Sir Nicholas Crispe of Fulham, London. [20] The couple were prominent in London during the years following the Restoration. Levett was mentioned by Samuel Pepys in his diaries; he was frequently mentioned in contemporary accounts of weddings and soirées of the age, and became a philanthropist, donating to charities like St. Thomas' Hospital in Southwark, and church charities in the West Country and Ireland. [21]
Sir Richard Levett's wife, in particular, was a generous donor to religious causes. Edmund Calamy, the English Nonconformist churchman, refers to "Lady Levett" in his memoirs as his great "friend", and Mrs. Levett was noted in other accounts as a generous donor to religious and educational causes. [22] Minister Calamy even dedicated a sermon to Lady Levett. [23]
Samuel Pepys, the diarist and Secretary of the Admiralty (and friend of Robert Blackborne, who held the same job), apparently socialised with Richard Levett. "After staying here a great while at Westminster", Pepys noted in his diary of 14 March 1668, "we (went) back to London, and there to Philips's, and his man directed us to Mr. Levett's, who could not come, and he sent us to two more, and they could not; so that, at last, Levett as a great kindness did resolve he would leave his business and come himself, which set me in great ease in my mind." [24]
Levett also figures prominently in the recently published diaries of politician Roger Whitley, Member of Parliament from Wales and then from Chester. Whitley was a prominent figure in Chester and a major Whig politician. Whitley's massive diaries reveal frequent meetings between the two men. [25]
Sir Richard Levett died in 1711. [26] He and his wife and several of their daughters [27] are buried in the churchyard at Kew, where there are memorials to them in the church as well as to the Blackborne family with whom they intermarried. [28] [29] The inscription carved into a mural slab set in the tower of Saint Anne's Church, Kew, reads: "Within this vault lie the remains of Sir Richard Levett, Knight, of Kew. Also of Lady Mary Levett, his wife, who died October 15th, 1722."
Sir Richard Levett's son Richard, also an Alderman (1722) and Sheriff of London, inherited his father's interests, but apparently mismanaged them, filing for bankruptcy in 1730. [30] Consequently, many heirlooms of the Levett family of Sussex [31] passed to the family of the Lord Mayor's daughter and her husband, the Hulse family of Hampshire, and are today at Breamore House, the Hulse family seat. (Alderman Levett, son of the Lord Mayor, died and was buried in Temple Church in 1740). [32]
The third brother of Richard and Francis Levett was Rev. Dr. William Levett, principal of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and Dean of Bristol. The brothers' uncle, brother of their father Rev. Richard Levett of Rutland, was courtier William Levett Esq., who accompanied King Charles I during his flight from Cromwellian forces, and thence to his imprisonment at Carisbrooke Castle and to his eventual execution.
Some twelve years following Sir Richard's death, his wife Mary, by then living at Bath, changed her will to exclude two paintings she had previously bequeathed to a friend at Bath upon discovering that the portraits of King Charles I and his Queen were painted by the artist Anthony van Dyck. Given the discovery, Dame Mary Levett made a codicil to her will directing that the valuable paintings be sold with the proceeds going to her granddaughters. Presumably the Levett family had inherited the paintings from the Lord Mayor's uncle, groom of the bedchamber to the late King. [33]
Charles Manners-Sutton was a bishop in the Church of England who served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1805 to 1828.
The Worshipful Company of Haberdashers, one of the Great Twelve City Livery Companies, is an ancient merchant guild of London, England associated with the silk and velvet trades.
Lieutenant-General John Manners, Marquess of Granby was a British Army officer, politician and nobleman. The eldest son of John Manners, 3rd Duke of Rutland, as he did not outlive his father and inherit the dukedom, Manners was known by his father's subsidiary title, Marquess of Granby. He served in the military during the Jacobite rising of 1745 and the Seven Years' War, being subsequently rewarded with the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. Manners was popular with the troops who served under him and many British pubs are still named after him today.
Kew Palace is a British royal palace within the grounds of Kew Gardens on the banks of the River Thames. Originally a large complex, few elements of it survive. Dating to 1631 but built atop the undercroft of an earlier building, the main survivor is known as the Dutch House. Its royal occupation lasted from around 1728 until 1818, with a final short-lived occupation in 1844. The Dutch House is Grade I listed, and open to visitors. It is cared for by an independent charity, Historic Royal Palaces, which receives no funding from the government or the Crown. Alongside the Dutch House is a part of its 18th-century service wing, whilst nearby are a former housekeeper's cottage, brewhouse and kitchen block – most of these buildings are private, though the kitchens are open to the public. These kitchens, the Great Pagoda and Queen Charlotte's Cottage are also run by Historic Royal Palaces.
Samuel Pepys Cockerell was an English architect.
Ashwell is a village and civil parish in the county of Rutland in the East Midlands of England. The population of the civil parish was 290 at the 2001 census falling to 269 at the 2011 census. It is located about 3 miles (5 km) north of Oakham.
The Marshalsea Court was a court associated with the Royal Household in England. Associated with, but distinct from, the Marshalsea Court was the Palace Court.
Breamore House is an Elizabethan manor house noted for its fine collection of paintings and furniture and situated NW of Breamore village, north of Fordingbridge, Hampshire, England. Though it remains in private hands, it is open to visitors from April to October.
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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.
Richard Oswald was a Scottish merchant, slave trader and diplomat. During the American Revolution, he served as an advisor to the North ministry on trade regulations and the best way to respond to the American War of Independence. Oswald is best known for being one of the British peace commissioners who negotiated the Peace of Paris in 1782.
Francis Levett (1654–1705) was a Turkey Merchant of the City of London who in partnership with his brother Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London, built a trading empire, importing and distributing tobacco and other commodities, mainly from the Levant. He served as Warden of the Worshipful Company of Mercers.
William Hewer, sometimes known as Will Hewer, was one of Samuel Pepys' manservants, and later Pepys's clerk, before embarking on an administrative career of his own. Hewer is mentioned several times in Pepys' diary and was ultimately the executor of Pepys' will.
Sir Charles Eyre was an administrator of the British East India Company and founder of Fort William, Calcutta. He was a President of Fort William.
Francis Levett was an English trader, who worked as factor at Livorno, Italy, for the Levant Company until he lit out for East Florida in 1769 where his brother-in-law Patrick Tonyn of the British Army had been appointed governor of the English colony. Wielding connections from a lifetime of overseas trading, as well as family connections from a powerful English mercantile family, Levett built one of the first plantations in Florida, and then forfeited his investment when the English lost their foothold in Florida, forcing him to flee to the British colony in the Bahamas. Eventually his son returned to Georgia, where he became the first to plant Sea Island cotton in America.
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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Thomas Povey FRS, was a London merchant-politician. He was active in colonial affairs from the 1650s, but neutral enough in his politics to be named a member from 1660 of Charles II's Council for Foreign Plantations. A powerful figure in the not-yet professionalised First English Empire, he was both "England's first colonial civil servant" and at the same time "a typical office holder of the Restoration". Both Samuel Pepys and William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia, railed at times against Povey's incompetence and maladministration.
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Thomas Thoroton, was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons for 25 years between 1757 and 1782.
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