Egerton Bagot Byrd Levett-Scrivener
Encyclopedia
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, Oxford University. 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
.
Egerton Levett was the son of Col. Richard Byrd Levett of Milford Hall
, Staffordshire
and his wife Elizabeth Mary (Mirehouse) Levett. Egerton Levett entered the service of the Royal Navy
, where during a posting as aide to Admiral Willes in 1884, he met Mabel Desborough Parkes, the daughter of Ambassador Parkes, who was then serving as British ambassador to China and Korea. Levett and Miss Parkes were married in 1884, and in 1885 their son Evelyn Harry Byrd Levett was born, prompting Ambassador Parkes to write "one of his happiest letters... written in January 1885 to his daughter, Mrs. Levett, on the memorable occasion when he became a grandfather."
In 1889, Levett inherited the Sibton Abbey
Manor from his aunt. The property, which was the only Cistercian abbey in East Anglia
, had been in the Scrivener family since its purchase in the early seventeenth century by John Scrivener, son of an Ipswich
barrister and bailiff grown rich in the wool trade. The Scrivener family later purchased 20000 acres (80.9 km²) from the Duke of Norfolk
to add to their Suffolk holdings. After inheriting Sibton Abbey, Egerton Levett changed his name to Levett-Scrivener in accordance with his aunt's wishes.
In 1890, six years after their marriage, Levett's wife Mabel was killed in a fall from her horse. A year later, in 1891, Levett married in Bristol
his cousin Mary Millicent Mirehouse. (Levett's mother was a Mirehouse, and his brother Richard Byrd Levett ultimately also changed his name to Richard Walter Byrd Mirehouse on succeeding to Mirehouse family property at The Hall, Angle, Pembrokeshire
, where by-then Richard W.B. Mirehouse served as High Sheriff of Pembrokeshire
as well as Lieutenant Colonel of 4th Batt. North Staffs Regiment
.)
Levett-Scrivener became an avid agriculturalist and farmer on the Sibton Abbey estate. He improved the farmland, and studied the manorial records of the Sibton properties, which were still in family hands, and shared them with historians. Levett-Scrivener tracked the produce grown on the farms, the cost of labor and the rentals accruing to the Scrivener owners. He also opened the Abbey periodically to county historians and antiquarians so they could investigate the ruins of the once-wealthy abbey, which had fallen during the Dissolution of the Monasteries
to the Howard family
.
The Levett-Scrivener family has longstanding ties to the Royal Navy
. Egerton Levett-Scrivener's son Evelyn Harry Byrd, named in part for his grandfather Parkes, also joined the Royal Navy, where he rose to the rank of Commander. Among the ancestors of the family is another Royal Navy stalwart, Admiral William Bligh
, captain of the ill-fated HMS Bounty
during its mutiny.
RN
Commander
Egerton Levett-Scrivener died in 1954. He had two siblings, and the three were baptized at the Berkswich
, Staffordshire
, church where their father Levett-Scrivener worshipped as a child.
The Levett-Scriveners, and most of their Scrivener relatives, are buried at St. Peter's Church in Sibton, near Yoxford
, Suffolk
. Among the descendants of Egerton Levett-Scrivener is a branch of the Joly de Lotbiniere
family of East Anglia. In 2005, the Levett-Scrivener family felt compelled to purchase the local village post office and shop facing closure in this quiet corner of rural England.
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
Flag Lieutenant and aide to Vice Admiral
Vice Admiral
Vice admiral is a senior naval rank of a three-star flag officer, which is equivalent to lieutenant general in the other uniformed services. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral...
George Willes
George Willes
Admiral Sir George Ommanney Willes GCB was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.-Naval career:...
in the Far East. He was later promoted to Captain, and following his retirement became Bursar
Bursar
A bursar is a senior professional financial administrator in a school or university.Billing of student tuition accounts are the responsibility of the Office of the Bursar. This involves sending bills and making payment plans with the ultimate goal of getting the student accounts paid off...
of Keble College, Oxford University. Born Egerton Levett, he changed his name to Levett-Scrivener on an inheritance from his aunt of Scrivener family properties at Sibton Abbey
Sibton Abbey
Sibton Abbey, an early Cistercian abbey located near Yoxford, Suffolk, was founded about 1150 by William de Chesney, High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk...
, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, which he later managed. Levett was married to the daughter of English diplomat and ambassador Sir Harry Smith Parkes
Harry Smith Parkes
Sir Harry Smith Parkes was a 19th century British diplomat who worked mainly in China and Japan...
.
Egerton Levett was the son of Col. Richard Byrd Levett of Milford Hall
Milford Hall
Milford Hall is a privately owned 18th-century country mansion house at Milford, near Stafford. It is the home of the Levett Haszard family and is a Grade II listed building....
, Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
and his wife Elizabeth Mary (Mirehouse) Levett. Egerton Levett entered the service of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
, where during a posting as aide to Admiral Willes in 1884, he met Mabel Desborough Parkes, the daughter of Ambassador Parkes, who was then serving as British ambassador to China and Korea. Levett and Miss Parkes were married in 1884, and in 1885 their son Evelyn Harry Byrd Levett was born, prompting Ambassador Parkes to write "one of his happiest letters... written in January 1885 to his daughter, Mrs. Levett, on the memorable occasion when he became a grandfather."
In 1889, Levett inherited the Sibton Abbey
Sibton Abbey
Sibton Abbey, an early Cistercian abbey located near Yoxford, Suffolk, was founded about 1150 by William de Chesney, High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk...
Manor from his aunt. The property, which was the only Cistercian abbey in East Anglia
East Anglia
East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...
, had been in the Scrivener family since its purchase in the early seventeenth century by John Scrivener, son of an Ipswich
Ipswich
Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...
barrister and bailiff grown rich in the wool trade. The Scrivener family later purchased 20000 acres (80.9 km²) from the Duke of Norfolk
Duke of Norfolk
The Duke of Norfolk is the premier duke in the peerage of England, and also, as Earl of Arundel, the premier earl. The Duke of Norfolk is, moreover, the Earl Marshal and hereditary Marshal of England. The seat of the Duke of Norfolk is Arundel Castle in Sussex, although the title refers to the...
to add to their Suffolk holdings. After inheriting Sibton Abbey, Egerton Levett changed his name to Levett-Scrivener in accordance with his aunt's wishes.
In 1890, six years after their marriage, Levett's wife Mabel was killed in a fall from her horse. A year later, in 1891, Levett married in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
his cousin Mary Millicent Mirehouse. (Levett's mother was a Mirehouse, and his brother Richard Byrd Levett ultimately also changed his name to Richard Walter Byrd Mirehouse on succeeding to Mirehouse family property at The Hall, Angle, Pembrokeshire
Angle, Pembrokeshire
Angle is a village and Community located on a narrow peninsula on the very southwest tip of Wales in Pembrokeshire. It has two public houses, a school, post office, a castle, St Mary's church and a sandy beach to the west of the village. The nearest viable rail station is Pembroke, from where there...
, where by-then Richard W.B. Mirehouse served as High Sheriff of Pembrokeshire
High Sheriff of Pembrokeshire
This is a list of High Sheriffs of Pembrokeshire. Under the Local Government Act 1888, an elected county council was set up to take over the functions of the Pembrokeshire Quarter Sessions...
as well as Lieutenant Colonel of 4th Batt. North Staffs Regiment
North Staffordshire Regiment
The North Staffordshire Regiment was an infantry regiment of the British Army, which was in existence between 1881 and 1959. It can date its lineage back to 1756 with the formation of a second battalion by the 11th Regiment of Foot, which shortly after became the 64th Regiment of Foot...
.)
Levett-Scrivener became an avid agriculturalist and farmer on the Sibton Abbey estate. He improved the farmland, and studied the manorial records of the Sibton properties, which were still in family hands, and shared them with historians. Levett-Scrivener tracked the produce grown on the farms, the cost of labor and the rentals accruing to the Scrivener owners. He also opened the Abbey periodically to county historians and antiquarians so they could investigate the ruins of the once-wealthy abbey, which had fallen during the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
to the Howard family
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, KG, Earl Marshal was a prominent Tudor politician. He was uncle to Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, two of the wives of King Henry VIII, and played a major role in the machinations behind these marriages...
.
The Levett-Scrivener family has longstanding ties to the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. Egerton Levett-Scrivener's son Evelyn Harry Byrd, named in part for his grandfather Parkes, also joined the Royal Navy, where he rose to the rank of Commander. Among the ancestors of the family is another Royal Navy stalwart, Admiral William Bligh
William Bligh
Vice Admiral William Bligh FRS RN was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. A notorious mutiny occurred during his command of HMAV Bounty in 1789; Bligh and his loyal men made a remarkable voyage to Timor, after being set adrift in the Bounty's launch by the mutineers...
, captain of the ill-fated HMS Bounty
HMS Bounty
HMS Bounty , famous as the scene of the Mutiny on the Bounty on 28 April 1789, was originally a three-masted cargo ship, the Bethia, purchased by the British Admiralty, then modified and commissioned as His Majesty's Armed Vessel the...
during its mutiny.
RN
RN
RN or Rn may stand for:* rn , a Usenet news client* RN the code for County Roscommon, Ireland* RN, the published memoirs of American President Richard Nixon* Air Horizons's IATA code...
Commander
Commander
Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
Egerton Levett-Scrivener died in 1954. He had two siblings, and the three were baptized at the Berkswich
Berkswich
Berkswich is a civil parish in the borough of Stafford in Staffordshire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 1528. Berkswich should not be mistaken for Baswich, which is included in the parish, along with Weeping Cross, Wildwood, Walton-on-the-Hill and Milford...
, Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
, church where their father Levett-Scrivener worshipped as a child.
The Levett-Scriveners, and most of their Scrivener relatives, are buried at St. Peter's Church in Sibton, near Yoxford
Yoxford
Yoxford is a village in the east of Suffolk, England close to the Heritage Coast, Minsmere Reserve , Aldeburgh and Southwold.-Location and features:...
, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
. Among the descendants of Egerton Levett-Scrivener is a branch of the Joly de Lotbiniere
Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière
Sir Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, served as the fourth Premier of the Canadian province of Quebec, a federal Cabinet minister, and the seventh Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia.- Early years :...
family of East Anglia. In 2005, the Levett-Scrivener family felt compelled to purchase the local village post office and shop facing closure in this quiet corner of rural England.
Sources
- The Levetts of Staffordshire, Dyonese Levett Haszard, Milford, Staffordshire, privately printed