Jump to content

Richard Levett

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir Richard Levett
1699 portrait byGodfried Schalcken
Born1629
Ashwell, Rutland
Died(1711-01-20)20 January 1711
Kew,Surrey,England
Resting placeSt Anne's Church, Kew,Richmond-upon-Thames
Spouses
  • Mary Shipton
  • Mary Clarke
ChildrenElizabeth, Mary, Frances, Anne, Richard
Parent(s)Revd Richard Levett
Katherine Brademore

Sir Richard Levett(1629–1711) was an English merchant and politician who was electedLord Mayor of Londonin 1699. Born inAshwell, Rutland,he moved toLondonand established a pioneering mercantile career, becoming involved with theBank of Englandand theEast India Company.

Acquainted with many prominent individuals during his time in the City of London, among themSamuel Pepys,Sir John Houblon,Sir William Gore,Sir John Holt,Sir Charles Eyre,andDr Robert Hooke,Levett acquired several properties inKewandCripplegate.[1]

Early life and career beginnings

[edit]

Although born into a once-powerful SussexAnglo-Normanfamily (its surname derives from the village ofLivetinNormandy), 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 wasejectedin 1660 after theRestorationwhen the legitimate incumbent returned to theliving.Although born with connections, Richard Levett and his brotherFranciswere 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 weremiddle-class.They represented an emerging England, an England of meritocracy and hard work that trumped the feudal aristocratic England. (Perhaps it was not an accident that their father, Rev. Richard Levett, heldPuritansympathies.) 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 nominally a Tory, he was by practice a free market capitalist.[3]

Levettand his brother Francis began as smallhaberdashers,trading everything from tobacco totextiles.The sons of a country parson inRutland,the two Levett brothers imported goods into England, which they then sold tochapmenatfairsacross the country, including those atLenton,Gainsborough,Boston,Beverleyand elsewhere. As theBritish Empirebegan 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 ownshipsto import everything from tobacco to linens.

Armsof Lord Mayor Levett,Stype's Survey of London,1720

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 theLevant(principallyTurkeyandSyria),India,Africa,theWest Indies,North America,Irelandas well as theRussias.Contemporaneous records show Levett often immersed in the details of arranging shipping terms and trading voyages to places as disparate asFrench Guinea,Virginia,Marylandand elsewhere. Like many London merchants of the period, Levett was involved in theAtlantic slave trade,transportingBlack slavesfromFrench Guineaand variousWest Africanports for sale in the English colonies ofVirginiaandMaryland.[4]

In 1705, for instance, Levett sent a letter to theBoard of Trade and Plantationsto 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]

The building of a business empire

[edit]
St. Anne's Church, Kew,burial place of Sir Richard Levett and family

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 theVirginia Colony,as well as the tobacco coming fromTurkey.[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 theLondon East India Company,[8]one of the first directors of the newBank of England,[9]and even, on 17 February 1698, a member of theNew England Company.[10]With his deep interests inshipping,Levett was also one of the earliest investors in what becameLloyd's of London,the insurance market place. He wasknightedatKensingtonin 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. Thomas 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 Prichardand Mr. Peter 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 toHolland,Germanyand theBaltic.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.

The Rt Hon'ble Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London, 1700

As their trading grew, Richard Levett became a prominent fixture on the London scene. Master of theHaberdashers' Company(1690 and 1691),[13]he was elected as a City Alderman before serving asSherifffor 1691/92, and thenLord Mayor of London(1699/1700).[14]As Master of the Haberdashers' Company, Levett played a key role in building fellow Master of the Haberdashers' Company SirRobert Aske's Hospital, with Levett's friend Robert Hooke serving as architect.[15]

From his home inCripplegate,formerly the home ofSir 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 theGreat Fire of London,was a large town house on the old Noble Street near Lily Pot Lane. (The home was later occupied by printerCharles Rivington.)

Home and family life

[edit]
Portrait of fourAldermenofLondon,1725, including Richard Levett, Esq., son of Lord Mayor Sir Richard Levett. Alderman Levett was declared bankrupt in 1730

Also available for Levett's use were two country homes at Kew,[17]including the Dutch House (nowKew Palace), as well as the large estate surrounding them.[18](After Levett's death, his daughter Mary Thoroton leased the Dutch House toQueen Caroline,wife ofKing George II,for use as a children's nursery, likely accounting for the decision ofFrederick, 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 Blackburne, Esq., a prominentLincoln's Innbarrister).[19]

Sir Richard Levett was married to Mary Crispe, likely the daughter of merchant adventurer Sir Nicholas Crispe ofFulham,Middlesex.[20]The couple were prominent in London during the years following theRestoration.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 likeSt. Thomas' HospitalinSouthwark,and church charities in theWest Countryand 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 who 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 andSecretary of the Admiralty(and friend of Robert Blackburne, his predecessor and brother of theArchbishop of York), apparently socialised with Alderman 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 politicianRoger Whitley,Member of Parliament from Wales and then from Chester. Whitley was a prominent figure in Chester and Whig politician. Whitley's massive diaries reveal frequent meetings between the two men.[25]

Death and legacy

[edit]

Sir Richard Levett died in 1711.[26]He and his wife and several of their daughters[27]are buried in thechurchyard at Kew,where there are memorials to them in the church as well as to the Blackburne family with whom they intermarried.[28][29]The inscription carved into a mural slab set in the tower ofSaint 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."

The Dutch House (Kew Palace), home of Sir Richard Levett, later sold to theRoyal Family.

Sir Richard Levett's son Richard, also an Alderman (1722) andSheriff 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 ofHampshire,and are today atBreamore House,theHulsefamily seat. (Alderman Levett, son of the Lord Mayor, died and was buried atTemple Churchin 1740).[32]

The third brother of Richard and Francis Levett wasVery Rev.Dr. William Levett,Principal ofMagdalen Hall, Oxford,andDeanofBristol.The brothers' uncle, brother of their father Rev. Richard Levett ofRutland,was courtierWilliam LevettEsq., who accompaniedKing Charles Iduring his flight fromCromwellianforces, and thence to his imprisonment atCarisbrooke Castleand to his eventual execution.

Some twelve years following Sir Richard's death, his widow Mary, by then living atBath,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 artistAnthony 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]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^The House of Commons, 1690–1715, Vol. I, David Hayton, Eveline Cruickshanks, Stuart Handley, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002
  2. ^Rev. Richard Levett was presented to the rectory ofAshwell, Rutland,on 13 May 1646, by SirNathaniel Brent,Warden of Merton College, Oxford, Levett having received a Presentation by the Great Seal of England. This was clearly a Cromwellian Puritan appointment[1]Levett was the 'intruding minister.'[2]
  3. ^London and the Kingdom, Vol. II, Reginald R. Sharpe, BiblioBazaar LLC, 2008
  4. ^[3]
  5. ^Journal, February 1705, Journals of the Board of Trade and Plantations, Institute of Historical Research, 1920, British History Online, british-history.ac.uk
  6. ^America and West Indies, Calendar of State Papers: Colonial, America and West Indies, December 1702, Cecil Headlam (ed.), Institute of Historical Research, 1913, British History Online, british-history.ac.uk
  7. ^Thomas Haydon, England to Virginia, 1657, Robert Haydon, published by Robert Haydon, 2002
  8. ^ Report on the Old Records of the India Office, George Christopher Molesworth Birdwood, W. H. Allen and Co., London, Calcutta, 1891
  9. ^History of the Bank of England, Its Times and Traditions, Vol. II, John Francis, Willoughby & Co., London, 1847
  10. ^A Sketch of the Origin and the Recent History of the New England Company, Henry William Busk, Company for Propagation of the Gospel in New England and the Parts Adjacent in America, Spottiswoode & Co., London, 1884
  11. ^William A. Shaw(May 2010).The Knights of England. a Complete Record from the Earliest Time to the Present Day of the Knights of All the Orders of Chivalry in England, Scotland.Clearfield Company. p. 266.ISBN978-0-8063-5133-9.
  12. ^Revue de l'Extreme-Orient,Henri Cordier, Paris, 1887
  13. ^The Livery Companies of the City of London, William Hazlitt, republished by Ayer Publishing, 1972
  14. ^The succession of aldermen from 1689, Centre for Metropolitan History,A New History of London,John Noorthouck,1773, pages 894–897, British History Online, british-history.ac.uk
  15. ^Thesis of Anthony Hotson, Chapter 8, anthonyhotson.com
  16. ^A Dictionary of London, Henry A. Harben, 1918, Centre for Metropolitan History, British History Online, british-history.ac.uk
  17. ^Richard Levett's will on file at Somerset House shows that he owned two homes at Kew, one today's Kew Palace, and the other apparently the 'Queen's House'.[4]
  18. ^Mark Noble,James Granger,A Biographical History of England, from the Revolution to the End of George I's Reign,W. Richardson, London, 1806
  19. ^A Regal Dollhouse Fit for a Princess, The New York Times, 2 July 2004
  20. ^History of the Crispe Family, Part One, Dr. B.J. Cigrand, Chicago, Illinois, 1901
  21. ^An Historical Account of St. Thomas' Hospital, Southwark, Benjamin Golding, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Browne, London, 1819
  22. ^An Historical Account of My Own Life, Vol. I, Edmund Calamy, John Towill Rutt, Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, London, 1830
  23. ^A History of the Presbyterian and General Baptist Churches of the West of England, Jerom Murch, R. Hunter, London, 1835
  24. ^Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, Samuel Pepys, Vol. III, J.B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1855
  25. ^Roger Whitley's Diary, various entries, British History Online, british-history.ac.uk
  26. ^Memoriae Flagranti, A Funeral Poem to the Memory of the Honourable Sir Richard Levet, Kt., by E. Settle, City Poet, 1711, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, John Nichols, Nichols, Son and Bentley, London, 1814
  27. ^Levett's daughter Mary, wife of London merchant Abraham Blackborne, married as his second wife Col. Thomas Thoroton ofFlintham,Nottinghamshire. She is buried atScreveton,Nottinghamshire.[5]Their daughter Mary Thoroton marriedCharles Manners-Sutton,Archbishop of Canterbury.[6]
  28. ^The Environs of London, Daniel Lysons, T. Cadell and W. Davies, London, 1810
  29. ^Sir Richard Levett's daughter married Abraham Blackborne, Esq., a London merchant living atClapham.From the inheritances of the Blackburne family, who were left large estates by Samuel Pepys' lifelong friendWilliam Hewer,it appears that Abraham Blackburne was the son or nephew of another old friend of Pepys: Robert Blackburne, Esq., Admiralty Secretary and later Secretary of the original London East India Company, the predecessor of the Honourable East India Company. The intermarriage would not be unusual for those days, and Levett Blackburne, who inherited the Levett family estates at Kew, became a leadingLincoln's Innbarrister, Steward ofWestminster Palaceand longtime adviser tothe Dukes of Rutland.[7]Levett himself was also awarded royal grants in colonies such asNova ScotiaandEast Florida.
  30. ^Copy affidavit and draft re debts of Richard Levett bankrupt, 1730, Papers of the Byrd, Farmer and Levett Families of Milford, Staffordshire Record Office, archives.staffordshire.gov.uk
  31. ^Le Neve's Pedigrees of the Knights, Peter Le Neve, George William Marshall, The Harleian Society, London, 1873
  32. ^ Register of Burials at the Temple Church, 1628–1853, England Middle Temple, Temple Church, London, England, Published by Henry Sotheran, 1905
  33. ^The Home Counties Magazine: Devoted to the Topography of London, Middlesex, Essex, Herts, Bucks, Berks, Surrey and Kent, W. Paley Baildon (ed.), Vol. X, Reynell & Son, London, 1908

Sources

[edit]
  • The Levetts of Staffordshire,Dyonese Levett Haszard, Milford, Staffordshire, privately printed
  • The Making of the English Middle Class: Business, Society and Family Life in London, 1660–1730,Peter Earle, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1989
  • The Thorotons,Myles Thoroton Hildyard, privately printed, 1991
[edit]
Civic offices
Preceded by
Lord Mayor of London
1699– 1700 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Levett&oldid=1229159457"