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Levett is an Anglo-Norman territorial surname deriving from the village of Livet-en-Ouche, now Jonquerets-de-Livet, in Eure, Normandy. Ancestors of the earliest Levett family in England, the de Livets were lords of the village of Livet, and undertenants of the de Ferrers, among the most powerful of William the Conqueror's Norman lords.
One branch of the de Livet family came to England during the Norman Conquest, nearly a thousand years ago, and were prominent in Derbyshire, Chester, and Sussex, where they held many manors, including the lordship of Firle.
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Levett is an Anglo-Norman territorial surname deriving from the village of Livet-en-Ouche, now Jonquerets-de-Livet, in Eure, Normandy. Ancestors of the earliest Levett family in England, the de Livets were lords of the village of Livet, and undertenants of the de Ferrers, among the most powerful of William the Conqueror's Norman lords.
One branch of the de Livet family came to England during the Norman Conquest, nearly a thousand years ago, and were prominent in Derbyshire, Chester, and Sussex, where they held many manors, including the lordship of Firle. The name is Celtic, 'livet' meaning a swampy place traversed by water. But like most Anglo-Normans, the family's origins are probably mostly Viking.
Although the date of the family's arrival in England is unknown, the family name appears in the records of William the Conqueror. Ancient English deeds subsequently refer to many lands across Sussex as 'Levetts,' indicating family possession of broad swaths of Sussex countryside. Among the family's holdings was the manor of Catsfield Levett, today known simply as Catsfield, located a scant three miles from the battlefield where Duke William of Normandy ('William the Bastard,' as he was dubbed) thrashed the English forces to become King.
Like most medieval Norman families, the Levetts were dependent on the web of feudal hierarchy. They held their lands as overlords in return for knight's service (commonly called Knight's fees). As their feudal overlords thrived, so did they; conversely, their fate was tied to the unpredictable fortunes of those same overlords.
The Levetts and their descendants eventually held land in Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Kent, Bedfordshire and later in Ireland and in Staffordshire. The Anglicisation of this Norman French surname took many forms, including Levett, Levet, Lyvet, Livett, Delivett, Leavett, Leavitt and others.
Levett family members were early knights and Crusaders — many members of both English and French branches of the family were Knights Hospitallers — and they occupied a place in the English landed gentry for centuries. Unlike the French branch of the family, no members of the English branch were ennobled, although they intermarried with nobility and served as courtiers.
A branch of the Levett family still occupies Milford Hall, a family home in Staffordshire, England, where a Levett descendant is nominated for High Sheriff of Staffordshire for 2009. Members of the family formerly occupied Wychnor Park (or Hall) and Packington Hall, two country mansions in the same county, where English artist James Ward painted three Levett children playing in 1811.
As with many families of Anglo-Norman extraction, some branches thrived, while others fell on hard times. The vicissitudes of character — and the collapsing feudal order — played havoc with the fortunes of some family members. The lordship of Firle, East Sussex, for instance, passed from the family in 1440 on the indebtedness of then-lord Thomas Levett. The bankrupt Levett also forfeited his inherited lordship of Catsfield, East Sussex.
Others fared just as poorly. 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. As with Thomas Hardy's hapless d'Urbervilles, noble Norman lineage was no guarantor of rectitude, ability or fate.
Some Levetts moved abroad in search of opportunity. A Levett relation, a British clerk in India, was friend to Rudyard Kipling and a minor Victorian novelist. Another was an English factor living in Livorno, Italy, shuttling back and forth to Constantinople for the Levant Company. (Francis Levett later moved to British East Florida, became a planter and ultimately failed; his son Francis Jr. returned to America, where he became the first to grow Sea Island cotton.)
The Levett family became part of the British Empire's expanding grasp. Sir Richard Levett was one of the first Governors of the Bank of England, a member of the original London East India Company and the Lord Mayor of London in 1699. He resided at his home at Kew, later sold to the Royal Family. In the eighteenth century, John Levett, born in Turkey to an English merchant father and brother of planter Francis, became alderman and Mayor of Calcutta, India.
Over the generations, Levett descendants spanned the social ranks: one family relation, an English clergyman, is memorialized in Westminster Abbey where he dropped dead reading the Ninth Commandment; another family ancestor was among the founders of an Oxford University college; another, an assistant pantry steward aboard an ocean liner, perished when the RMS Titanic sank; a fourth, a simple Suffolk butcher, emerged as leader of populist Kett's Rebellion in the sixteenth century.
One family member was a 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, who eulogized him as "officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend." 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.
In a few cases Levetts were forced by religious belief to flee England for the colonies. Among these were John Leavitt and 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. John Leavitt was a tailor; Thomas a simple farmer. No paternal family relationship existed between the two men.
Today there are many Levetts living outside England, including in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland, where the first 'de Livet' ventured in the thirteenth century as part of the Norman invasion, becoming one of Dublin's earliest mayors. The spelling of the name varies from place to place.
Members of the original de Livet family continue to reside in France. The Normandy branch traces its descent to Jean de Livet, chevalier and banneret in 1216 to King Philip II of France, builder of the first Louvre fortress in Paris. Chevalier Thomas de Livet, noted Crusader and son of Jean, was knighted by King Philip II's successor, King Louis IX of France, in 1258. The de Livet family of Normandy bore as their coat of arms since medieval times three gold mullets on an azure field.
The de Livet family was among the ancient noble families of France, or noblesse d'épée. (The French revolution stripped the hereditary French nobility of its feudal privileges.) The English branch of the de Livet (Levett) family claims descent from Jean de Livet, seigneur of Livet (now Jonquerets-de-Livet) in 1040, prior to the Norman Conquest.
People
Members of the Levett family include:
- Ada Elizabeth (A.E.) Levett, born Bodiam, East Sussex, renowned medieval historian, vice principal, St Hilda's College, Oxford, professor at Westfield College, University of London, d. 1932
- Arthur Levett, born Petworth, West Sussex, d. 1700, Talbot County, Maryland
- Capt. Berkeley John Talbot Levett, London, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Scots Guard, married Sibell Bass, witness in the infamous Royal Baccarat Scandal
- Capt. Christopher Levett, English explorer of New England, first owner of Portland, Maine, born at York, England, 1586
- Major Edward Levett, Wychnor Park, Staffordshire, Rowsley, Derbyshire, Pau, France, married Caroline Georgina Longley, daughter of Charles Thomas Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury
- Egerton Bagot Byrd Levett-Scrivener, Flag Lieutenant, Royal Navy, Bursar, Keble College, Oxford, son of Col. Richard Byrd Levett of Milford Hall, took additional name of Scrivener on inheritance, married daughter of British diplomat Sir Harry Smith Parkes, lived at Sibton Manor, Yoxford, Suffolk
- Elias Lyvet, Abbot, Rufford Abbey, Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, England 1332
- Sir Elias de Lyvet, Knight, attempted insurrection against King Henry IV, 1413
- Elton Levett, Esq., Nottingham, surgeon; daughter Frances married Hon. George Byron of Rochdale
- F. M. Jane Levett, Lecturer, Department of Logic, University of Glasgow, translator (as M. J. Levett), Plato's Theaetetus, sister of historian Elizabeth Levett, d. 1974
- Francis Levett, English tobacco merchant who married the sister of Sir John Holt, the Lord Chief Justice of England, partner in Sir Richard Levett & Co. with his brother Richard
- Francis Levett, British planter in East Florida, built an early Florida plantation, which the family was forced to abandon; his son returned to Georgia to become the first to plant Sea Island cotton (Gossypium barbadense) in America
- George Levett, colonist, arrived in Virginia Colony on ship Bona Nova, servant, 1619
- George Alfred Levett, assistant pantry steward, 21, Southampton, England, RMS Titanic
- Gerald Aylmer Levett-Yeats, wildlife artist, illustrator, Calcutta, India, brother of Sidney Levett-Yeats; illustrator of The Birds of Singapore Island and The Common Birds of India (1925)
- Gilbert de Lyvet, Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ireland, 1233–34, 1235–37, witness to 1210 gift by Isabel de Clare, 4th Countess of Pembroke to the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Dublin, in honour of her father Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, whose tomb is in the Cathedral
- Gordon Levett (1921–2000), pilot, Royal Air Force, World War II, member of Squadron 101, First Fighter Squadron in the Israeli Air Force, only English Gentile pilot in Israeli Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel, Israeli Air Force, 1948
- Rev. Grevile Marais (G.M.) Livett, Canon, Rochester Cathedral, later vicar of Wateringbury, Kent, antiquarian, FSA, author on ecclesiastical architecture
- Dr. Henry Levett, eminent physician at London Charterhouse who wrote a pioneering tract on smallpox, 1710
- James Levett, Mayor, Waterford, Ireland, 1610
- John Leavitt, English Puritan, tailor, founding deacon, Old Ship Church, Hingham, Massachusetts, 1681
- John Livet, Lord of the Manor of Firle, Sussex, 1316
- John Levett, Little Horsted, East Sussex, one of Sussex's earliest ironmasters, d. 1535, brother Rev. William Levett took over family iron interests
- John Livett, Mayor, Hastings, East Sussex, 1506, 1514, 1520, 1552
- John Levett, Salehurst, Sussex, purchaser of Bodiam Castle, 1588
- John Levet, London merchant, member of the Virginia Company of London, 1609
- John Levett, naturalist, author of The Ordering of Bees: Or, the True History of Managing Them, London, 1634
- John Levett, Mayor, Waterford, Ireland, 1649
- John Levett, Tory member of Parliament, Staffordshire, 1761–62, friend of Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton and others, sometime member of the Lunar Society
- John Levett, merchant, Alderman, Mayor, Calcutta, India, 1768–70
- John Levett, athlete, born Battersea, twice champion runner of England, ran 10 miles in 52:35, 1852
- John Levett (1927–2008), postal historian, Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society London (President 1986–88); member of honour, European Academy of Philately; signatory, Roll of Distinguished Philatelists; authority on crash and wreck mail, maritime and siege mail
- John Levett, prize-winning poet, (winner, British National Poetry Competition), Their Perfect Lives shortlisted for Whitbread Poetry Prize, Norfolk, England
- John Levett-Yeats, grandson of English merchant planter Francis Levett, son of David Yeats, M.D., Secretary of British East Florida, married to Frances Arabella, daughter of Philip Reinagle, Royal Academy, artist
- Keppel Bagot Levett, one of the first casualties of the BSAP (British South Africa Police) in World War II, died on active service, March 1941
- Laurence Levett Esq., owner of The Grove, Hollington, East Sussex, landowner, son of John Levett, ironmaster, died 1585, his estates passing to his sister Mary (Levett) Eversfield
- Maud Sophia Levett (Mrs. William Swynnerton Byrd Levett), author, writer on religious themes, Milford Hall, Milford, Staffordshire
- Nicholas Levett, Gentleman Usher to the British Royal Household, 1660–81
- Rev. Nicholas Levett, rector, Westbourne, West Sussex, fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, buried at Beckley, Oxfordshire, 1687
- Percival Levett, merchant, Chamberlain and Sheriff of the city of York, 1597
- Rev. Ralph Levett, Christ's College, Cambridge, domestic chaplain to Sir William Wray; rector, Grainsby, Lincolnshire, Puritan sympathizer, protégé of Rev. John Cotton, brother-in-law of Rev. John Wheelwright, b. 1600
- Reginald Lyvet, August 1282, Dublin, Ireland, nominated by Roger Bigod, 5th Earl of Norfolk to serve as his attorney in Ireland for one year on Bigod's absence on the King's business in Wales
- Richard Levett, Knight, Sussex, named as one of county's leading citizens, 1411
- Richard Levette, English burgess of Calais, France, 1422
- Richard Levett, Mayor, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, d. 1618
 - Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London (1699), owner of Kew Palace, adventurer member, London East India Company, Governor, Bank of England (1698), proprietor, Sir Richard Levett & Co., brother of Rev. Dr. William Levett, Dean of Bristol
- Rev. Richard Levett, rector, West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire 1765–1805, married his cousin Anne Levett, daughter of Theophilus Levett
- Lieut. Col. Richard Walter Byrd Levett, High Sheriff of Pembrokeshire, Wales, Lieutenant Colonel of 4th Batt. North Staffs Regiment, name changed to Richard W.B. Mirehouse on succeeding to Mirehouse family property at The Hall, Angle, Pembrokeshire. Brother of Egerton Bagot Byrd Levett-Scrivener of Sibton Abbey, Suffolk
- Second Lieutenant Richard Byrd Levett of Milford Hall, The King's Royal Rifle Corps, killed in action in France, World War I, 1917
- Sir Robert de Livet, Knight, West Firle, Sussex, elected to hold inquests in Hastings, Pevensey and Lewes, 1279–88, died 1316
- Robert Levet, native of Hull, Yorkshire, impoverished apothecary who lived with Samuel Johnson, author of a famous poem eulogizing Levet
- Robin Levett (1925–2008), Australian author and horse breeder, "First Lady of Australian Racing", wife of businessman Geoffrey Levett
- Sidney Kilner Levett-Yeats, born to once-important British colonial family, descendant of East Florida planter Francis Levett, low-level bureaucrat in the India Office civil service, friend to Rudyard Kipling, fellow member of Lahore's Punjab Club, became minor Victorian novelist, author of The Honour of Savelli
- Theophilus Levett, Lichfield town clerk 1721–46, early friend and correspondent of Dr. Samuel Johnson
- Theophilus John Levett, Member of Parliament, Staffordshire 1880–85
- Theophilus Basil Percy Levett, son of MP Theophilus John Levett, Eton graduate, Lieut., Coldstream Guards, JP, barrister, died 1929
- Thomas Levett, lord of the manor, Catsfield Levett, East Sussex, 1347
- Thomas Levett, landowner, Sussex, sold the manor of Gotham in Bexhill-on-Sea to James Fiennes, 1st Baron Saye and Sele; his daughter Elizabeth married William Gildredge ca. 1440
- Rt. Rev. Thomas Levet, Canon of Holy Trinity Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland, son of William Levet and Anastasia Walsh, who were determined by Royal hearing into Levet's parentage (amidst allegations of bastardy) to be his "lawful" parents, July 2, 1526
- Thomas Levett, monk 1511–38, Battle Abbey, Battle, Sussex, pensioned at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, 1538
- Thomas Levett, High Sheriff of Rutland 1639, Judge of the Admiralty for the Northern Counties, antiquarian, Tixover, Rutland
- Rev. Thomas Levett, rector of Whittington, Staffordshire for 40 years, owner of Packington Hall
- Thomas Levett-Prinsep, son of Theophilus Levett of Wychnor Hall, heir to his uncle Thomas Prinsep, Eton graduate, High Sheriff of Derbyshire, resided at Croxall Hall, Derbyshire, took name of Prinsep on inheritance of his uncle's property, Justice of the Peace and landowner
- Thomas Levett-Prinsep, son of Thomas Levett-Prinsep of Croxall Hall, married granddaughter of Devon merchant and MP Arthur Howe Holdsworth, subsequently moved to Devon
- Walter de Livet, third mayor of Chester, England, 1246
- Walter Jesse Levett, b. 1879, Quarry Cottage, Speldhurst, Kent, Lance Corporal, Grenadier Guards, killed in action France, 1917
- William Levett, lord of the manor, Hooton Levitt, South Yorkshire, inherited patronage of Roche Abbey on marriage (ca. 1220) to Constantia, granddaughter of Richard FitzTurgis, co-founder of Roche with Richard de Busli
- William Levett, member of Knights Hospitallers, lord of the manor of Newlands Estate, Normanton, d. 1477, grandfather of Sir Thomas Gargrave, Speaker of the House of Commons
- Rev. William Levett, rector of Buxted, East Sussex, established the iron foundry industry in Sussex, d. 1554
- Rev. Dr. William Levett, principal, Magdalen College, Oxford, later Dean of Bristol, d. 1694
- William Levett, Esq., longtime courtier to King Charles I of England who accompanied the King to his execution and became embroiled in controversy over whether the King had penned the Eikon Basilike, father of Dr. Henry Levett
- William Levett, warden of the Drapers Company, London, served with fellow warden Grinling Gibbons 1704–05
- William Levett, Bodiam, Sussex, purchased manors of Owley and Palstre in Wittersham, Kent, from novelist Jane Austen's brother Edward, which Levett left to his daughters (d. 1842)
- William Howard Vincent "Hopper" Levett, Kent and England cricketer
Places named after the family
- Hooton Levitt, South Yorkshire
- Catsfield Levett, East Sussex, now simply Catsfield
- Levitt Hagg, South Yorkshire
- Fort Levett, Casco Bay, Maine
- Levette Lake, British Columbia, Canada
- Levitstown (initially Lyvetiston), County Kildare, Ireland
- Leavitt, California
- Leavittsburg, Ohio
- Leavitt Island, Alaska North Slope
- Leavittstown, now Effingham, New Hampshire
- Leavitt's Hill, now Deerfield, New Hampshire
- Leavitt Peak, California
- Leavitt, Alberta, Canada
- Leavitt (crater), Moon
- 5383 Leavitt, asteroid, Solar System
Places associated with the Levett family
These places are or were associated with the Levett family:
- Bodiam Castle, Bodiam, East Sussex
- Firle, East Sussex
- Normanton, West Yorkshire
- All Saints Church, Normanton, West Yorkshire
- St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex
- Buxted, East Sussex
- Hollington, East Sussex
- Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex
- Hillesley and Tresham, Gloucestershire
- Roche Abbey, South Yorkshire
- Milford Hall, Staffordshire
- Sibton Abbey, Yoxford, Suffolk
- Croxall Hall, Staffordshire
- Doncaster, South Yorkshire
- Wakefield, West Yorkshire
- Hopwas, Staffordshire
- Pontefract, West Yorkshire
- Wychnor Park, Staffordshire
- Kew Palace, Richmond, Surrey
- St James' Church, High Melton, South Yorkshire
- Breamore House, Hampshire
- Packington Hall, Whittington, Staffordshire
- Hardwick House, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
- Flintham, Nottinghamshire
- St. Pierre, Monmouthshire, Wales
- Dagenham, East London
- Kew, Surrey
- Salehurst, East Sussex
- Great Longstone, Derbyshire
- Wickersley, South Yorkshire
- Westbourne, West Sussex
- Beckley, Oxfordshire
- Botolphs, West Sussex
- Warbleton, East Sussex
- Little Horsted, East Sussex
- Savernake Forest, Wiltshire
- Swindon, Wiltshire
- Lichfield, Staffordshire
- Hornchurch, London Borough of Havering, East London
- Rochester Cathedral, Rochester, Kent
- Whittington, Staffordshire
- Polegate, East Sussex
- Seaford, East Sussex
- Nova Scotia
- British East Florida
- Portland, Maine
- Cushing Island, Maine
- York County, Maine
External links
Further reading
- Sons of the Conqueror: Descendants of Norman Ancestry, Leslie Pine, London, 1973
- The Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families, Lewis C. Loyd, David C. Douglas, John Whitehead & Son Ltd., London, 1951
- The Normans, David C. Douglas, The Folio Society, London, 2002
- Regesta Regum Anglo Normannorum, 1066–1154, Henry William Davis, Robert J. Shotwell (eds.), 4 volumes, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1913
- The Levetts of Staffordshire, Dyonese Levett Haszard, privately printed
Trivia
- Levett was the name given by Alfred Hitchcock to the villain in his first film, The Pleasure Garden, a 1925 silent movie
- Geoffrey Levett is the male lead character in Margery Allingham's novel, The Tiger in the Smoke (made into a 1956 British film of the same name)
- One branch of the family spell their name Livett, and produced five mayors of Hastings in the sixteenth century. These Livetts shared a coat-of-arms with the Sussex Levetts, but changed their motto to read (in Latin): Cruce Non Leone Fides ("I put my faith in the Cross and not in the Lion"). One wonders what prompted the editorial comment.
- The family name was carried into other English families through intermarriage, yielding the double-barrelled names Levett-Scrivener, Levett-Prinsep and Levett-Yeats
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a vicar's son, wrote in "Lady Clara Vere de Vere":
"Howe'er it be, it seems to me
'Tis only noble to be good;
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood."
See also
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