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.
Origins
This surname comes from the village of Livet-en-Ouche, now Jonquerets-de-Livet, in Eure, Normandy. Here the de Livets were undertenants of the de Ferrers family, among the most powerful of William the Conqueror's Norman lords.The Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families, David C. Douglas, Lewis C. Loyd, 1951. New edition, (1980). Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company. The name Livet (first recorded as Lived in the 11th century), of Gaulish etymology, may mean a "place where yew-trees grow".François de Beaurepaire, Les noms des communes et anciennes paroisses de L'Eure, éditions Picard 1981. p. 136.Albert Dauzat and Charles Rostaing, Dictionnaire étymologique des noms de lieux en France, Librairie Guénégaud 1979. p. 406.
The first de Livet in England, Roger, appears in Domesday as a tenant of the Norman magnate Henry de Ferrers. de Livet held land in Leicestershire, and was, along with Ferrers, a benefactor of Tutbury Priory. By about 1270, when the Dering Roll was crafted to display the coats of arms of 324 of England's most powerful lords, the coat of arms of Robert Livet, Knight, was among them. Some Levetts were early knights and Crusaders; many members of both English and French families were Knights Hospitallers,Kerdu, Pierre Marie Louis de Boisgelin de (1805). Ancient and modern Malta, as also, the history of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. 2. London. p. 310. and served as courtiers.
English Levetts
A Levett family settled in Derbyshire was extinct by the early sixteenth century. A family of the name resident in Sussex at Warbleton and Salehurst also held the manor of Firle until it passed from family control in 1440 due to the debts of Thomas Levett, whose bankruptcy also necessitated the loss of Catsfield, East Sussex. Sussex deeds indicate instances of 'Levetts' attached to place names, indicating possession by individuals and families of that name. In 1620, John Levett, of Sedlescombe, Sussex, was forced by financial hardship to sell his half-interest in Bodiam Castle, inherited family land and property across Sussex and Kent, including at Ewhurst, Salehurst, Battle, Sussex and Hawkhurst, Kent, to Sir Thomas Dyke, for £1000; this represented the end of these Levetts as prominent landowners.
Families of the name Levett (also Levet, Lyvet, Levytt, Livett, Delivett, Levete, Leavett, Leavitt, Lovett and others) would subsequently settle in Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, Worcestershire, Suffolk, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Kent, Bedfordshire and Staffordshire.
By the mid twentieth century, only two prominent Levett families remained; that of Milford Hall, Staffordshire and that formerly of Wychnor Hall, Staffordshire (and Packington Hall).Burke's Landed Gentry, 17th edition, ed. L. G. Pine, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1952, pp. 1184, 1517Burke's Family Index, ed. Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1976, pp. 104, 125 Milford Hall passed in the female line to the Haszard family,Burke's Landed Gentry, 17th edition, ed. L. G. Pine, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1952, p. 1184 and Wychnor Park was sold by the Levetts to Lt-Col W. E. Harrison in 1913, this later becoming a country club.
The Levett-Scrivener family (descending from a daughter of the Milford Hall family) retains the ruin of Sibton Abbey, which they have made available to historical societies and researchers; the Levett-Prinseps (a branch of the Wychnor Park family) were unable to maintain Croxall Hall; it was sold in 1920 and the estate was broken up.
By 1871, although family tradition of a common ancestor of the Milford Hall and Wychnor Park Levett families was mentioned in the latter pedigree, the earliest listed ancestors of each family were, respectively, William Levett of Savernake, Wiltshire, page to King Charles I at the time of his death in 1649, and Theophilus Levett, who died 1746.A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. Sir Bernard Burke, 1871, vol. II, pp. 785-786 Even the 1847 edition, produced at a time when Burke's publications were inclusive of vague, unproven 'family traditions' (a practice subsequently widely criticised),A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Colonial Gentry, Sir Bernard Burke, ed. Ashworth P. Burke, Harrison & Sons, London, 1895, p. 878 (end matter p. 2)Time magazine, 'Twentieth Century Squires', 10 Dec 1951 makes no mention of any earlier ancestors or Norman origin in either family's pedigree.A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, 1st edition, vol. I- A to L, John Burke and John Bernard Burke, 1847, pp. 724-725
Individuals of the name of Levett (and its variants) appear in all social strata: 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. A Francis Levett was a factor living in Livorno, Italy, travelling back and forth to Constantinople for the Levant Company. He subsequently failed at British East Florida as a planter; his son Francis Jr. returned to America, where he became the first to grow Sea Island cotton.
A notable individual of the name was the 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. 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.
Levetts elsewhere
Today there are many Levetts (the spelling of the name varies) living outside England, including in South Africa, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, and Ireland.
In a few cases Levetts were forced by religious belief to flee England for the colonies. Among these were tailor John Leavitt and farmer 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.
People surnamed Levett Individuals bearing the surname of Levett include:
Places named after Levett families and individuals
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, IrelandBeer and Biscuits, cottagepublications.com 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 Levetts Fields, Lichfield, Staffordshire Levetts Square, Lichfield, Staffordshire Leavitt (crater), Moon 5383 Leavitt, asteroid, Solar System
Places associated with Levett families or individuals These places are or were associated with Levett families or individuals:
In media
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)
See also Leavitt (surname)
References
Notes
Further reading Printed sources 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 "The Fortunes of Some Gentry Families of Elizabethan Sussex," J. E. Mousley, The Economic History Review, April 1959, Vol. 11, pp. 467–482 Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents, 1066–1166, Volume 1, Katharine Keats-Rohan, Woodbridge, Suffolk, Boydell Press, 1999
Google Books Seal of John Livet, Lord of Firle, Sussex, Lewes Castle Museum, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 1866 Purchase of Bodiam Castle by John Levett, Descriptive Catalogue of the Original Charters, Royal Grants, and Donations, Monastic Chartulary Constituting the Muniments of Battle Abbey, Founded by William the Conqueror, Thomas Thorpe, London, 1835 Roger de Livet, ca. June/July 1171, Court, Household, and Itinerary of King Henry II, Robert William Eyton, Great Britain, 1878 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 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, impaling Barnby, St James' Church, High Melton 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, William Stott 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 Levet of Sussex, A Compendious History of Sussex, Mark Antony Lower, Lewes, Sussex, 1870 Dictionnaire des fiefs, seigneuries, chatellenies, etc. de l'ancienne France, Paris, 1862 History of de Livet family, Normandy, Dictionnaire de la noblesse contenant les généalogies, l'histoire & la chronologie des familles nobles de France, Francois Alexandre Aubert de La Chesnaye-Desbois, 1775
External links
Some variations of the name Levett Portrait of Dr. Robert Levett of Lichfield, Staffordshire, d. 1782, Erasmus Darwin House, Lichfield District Council, Flickr.com Levett of Sussex Coat of Arms, YeOldeSussexPages Levett of High Melton and Normanton, Thurcroft web