Levett
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Bookplate of Rev. Thomas Levett, Arms of Levett and Gresley, Packington Hall, Staffordshire

Levett is an English territorial surname deriving from the village of Livet-en-Ouche, now Jonquerets-de-Livet, in Eure, Normandy. One branch of the 'de Livet' family came to England following the Norman Conquest, and were prominent in Derbyshire, Chester, and Sussex, where they held many manors, including the lordship of Firle.

Ancient deeds referred to many lands across Sussex as 'Levetts,' indicating family possession of broad swaths of Sussex countryside.^[1][2] As with most medieval Norman families, the Levetts were dependent on the web of feudal hierarchy. They held their lands of overlords in return for knights service (commonly called Knight's fees). As their feudal overlords thrived, so did they; conversely, their fate was often tied to 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. Members of the Levett family still occupy Milford Hall 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.

As with many families of Anglo-Norman extraction, some branches thrived, while others fell on hard times. One Levett, a guard on the London to Brighton coach, was convicted of petty theft and expelled to Australia. Another, a British clerk in India, was a friend to Rudyard Kipling and a minor Victorian novelist. A family relation is memorialized in Westminster Abbey where he dropped dead reading the Ninth Commandment. Another, a pantryman aboard an ocean liner, perished when the RMS Titanic sank.

Another 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 the denizens of London's seedier neighborhoods. Levet married badly and was taken in by the poet Samuel Johnson, who eulogized him as "officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend."

In some cases Levetts were forced by religious belief to flee England for the colonies. Today there are many Levetts living outside England. The spelling may vary from place to place.

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, burial place of Lord Mayor Lyvet

Charterhouse Hospital, London

Normandy, France

People

Members of the Levett family include-

• A.E. (Ada Elizabeth) Levett, renowned medieval scholar and professor at the University of London
• Capt. Berkeley John Talbot Levett, Scots Guard, witness in the infamous Royal Baccarat Scandal
• Christopher Levett, English explorer of New England, born in York, 1586
• Francis Levett (merchant), English tobacco merchant who married the sister of Sir John Holt (judge), the Lord Chief Justice of England
• Francis Levett (planter), British planter who first planted Sea Island cotton (Gossypium barbadense) in America
• Gilbert de Lyvet (Levett), early Lord Mayor of Dublin, 1233
• Gordon Levett, Royal Air Force veteran who aided Israel in its establishment as a state
• Dr. Henry Levett, eminent physician at London Charterhouse who wrote a pioneering tract on smallpox, 1710
• William Howard Vincent Hopper Levett, well-known English cricketer
• James Levett, Mayor, Waterford, Ireland, 1610
• John Livet, lord of Firle, Sussex, 1316
• John Levett, Salehurst, Sussex, purchaser of Bodiam Castle, 1588
• John Levet, London merchant and member of the Virginia Company of London, 1609
• John Levett, naturalist, author, "The Ordering of Bees: Or, the True History of Managing Them," London 1634
• John Levett, Mayor, Waterford, Ireland, 1649
• John Levett (athlete), born Battersea, twice champion runner of England , ran 10 miles in 52:35, 1852
• Keppel Bagot Levett, one of the first casualties of the BSAP (British South Africa Police) in World War II, died in active service, March 1941
• Percival Levett, merchant, Chamberlain and Sheriff of the city of York, 1597
• Richard Levette, English burgess of Calais, France, 1422
• Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London who owned Kew Palace
• Robert Levet, native of Hull, Yorkshire, impoverished apothecary who lived with Samuel Johnson, author of a famous poem eulogizing Levet
• Theophilus Levett, Lichfield town clerk and early friend and correspondent of Samuel Johnson
• Theophilus John Levett, Member of Parliament 1880-1885
• Rev. Thomas Levett, rector of Whittington, Staffordshire for 40 years, owner of Packington Hall
• Walter de Livet, third mayor of Chester, England, 1246
• William Levett (vicar), rector of Buxted, Sussex who established the iron foundry industry in Sussex
• Rev. Dr. William Levett (dean), principal, Magdalen Hall, Oxford University, later Dean of Bristol, died 1694
• William Levett (courtier), courtier to King Charles I of England who accompanied the King on the day of his execution and became embroiled in controversy over whether the King had penned the Eikon Basilike

Roche Abbey, South Yorkshire

Portland, Maine, head light

Towns

Three towns were named after the Levett family-

• Hooton Levitt, in Yorkshire
• Catsfield Levett, in Sussex, now simply known as Catsfield
• Levitt Hagg, South Yorkshire

Bodiam Castle, Sussex

Places associated with the Levett family

These places were associated with the Levett family-

• Bodiam Castle, in Sussex
• Firle, Sussex
• Normanton, West Yorkshire
• All Saints Church, Normanton, Normanton, West Yorkshire
• St. Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex
• Buxted, East Sussex
• Roche Abbey, South Yorkshire
• Milford Hall, Staffordshire
• Kew Palace, Richmond, Surrey
• St James' Church, High Melton, High Melton, South Yorkshire

St. Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex

External links

• Seal of John Livet, Lord of Firle, Sussex, Lewes Castle Museum, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 1866
• Some variations of the name Levett
• Origins of the Levett name from Lewis Loyd, The Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families
• A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain, Bernard Burke, 1863
• Levett, Packington Hall, Mansions and Country Seats of Staffordshire and Warwickshire, Alfred Williams, Walter Henry Mallett, 1899
• The Norman People and Their Existing Descendants in the British Dominions and the United States of America, Henry S. King & Co., 1874
• Levet of Sussex, Le Neve's Pedigrees of the Knights Made by King Charles II, etc., Peter Le Neve, 1873
• Levett of Sussex Coat of Arms, YeOldeSussexPages
• Johannes Lyvet, Hastings, Sussex, Summoned to meet at Westminster, 1417, King Henry V, Sussex Archaeological Collections, Sussex Archaeological Society, 1881
• Coat of Arms, Levett of High Melton and Normanton, Yorkshire, St. James' Church, High Melton
• Levett of High Melton and Normanton, Thurcroft web
• Levett of High Melton and Normanton, Yorkshire, New England Historic and Genealogical Register, Henry Fitz-Gilbert Waters, 1913
• Thomas Levett-Prinsep, Derbyshire
• Tomb Chests of Levetts, All Saints Church, Normanton, The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 1879
• Levett of Normanton, Yorkshire, Walks in Yorkshire; Wakefield and its Neighbourhood, W.S. Banks, 1871
• Levett, The Genealogist's Guide, George William Marshall, 1893
• Alumni Oxoniensis: The Members of the University of Oxford, 1500-1714
• The Visitations of Sussex Made and Taken in the Years 1530, College of Arms, 1905
• John Levet (eventually Leavitt), Hingham, MA, 1661 deed from Native Americans, Suffolk Deeds, Suffolk County, Mass., 1894
• Moses Levet (eventually Leavitt), Exeter, NH, Minutes of Council and Assembly of New Hampshire, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, Great Britain Public Record Office, 1621-1698, London
• Richard Levette, Burgess of Calais, A Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient Deeds in the Public Record Office, Great Britain Public Record Office, 1902
• Robert Lyvet, Knight, Sussex, 1286, Calendar of Charters and Documents Relating to the Abbey of Robertsbridge, Baron Philip Sidney De L'Isle, 1873
• Sir John Levett, chaplain to Ryther, The Will of Thomas Ryther of Ryther, Yorkshire, Esq., July 1, 1527, Testamenta Eboracensia, John Will Clay, 1884
• Order of King Edward I to his Irish Magnates, John de Lyvet, 1302, A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire, Sir Bernard Burke, 1866
• Dictionnaire des fiefs, seigneuries, chatellenies, etc. de l'ancienne France, Paris, 1862 (French)
• History of de Livet family, Normandy, Dictionnaire de la noblesse, Francois Alexandre Aubert de La Chesnaye-Desbois, 1775 (French)

Kew Palace, Kew, Richmond, Surrey

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 volume, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1913
• "The Levetts of Staffordshire," Dyonese Levett Haszard, privately printed

King Charles I of England

Trivia

• Levett was the name given by Alfred Hitchcock to the villain in his first film, The Pleasure Garden, a 1925 silent movie
• 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, except they changed their motto (perhaps for good reason) to read (in Latin): "I put my faith in the Cross and not in the Lion."
• The family name was carried into other English families through intermarriage, resulting in the double-barreled names Levett-Scrivener, Levett-Prinsep and Levett-Yeats
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a vicar's son, put it best:

"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."

References