Richard Levett
| Sir Richard Levett | |
|---|---|
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by Godfried Schalcken, 1699
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| Born |
Richard Levett Ashwell, Rutland, England |
| Died | 20 January 1711 Kew, England |
| Resting place | St Anne's Church, Kew, Richmond-upon-Thames, London, England |
| Occupation | Sir Richard Levett & Co., trading and shipping |
| Known for | Lord Mayor of London, Director of Bank of England |
| Spouse(s) | Mary (née Shipton) Levett; 2nd Mary (née Clarke) Levett |
| Children | Elizabeth Hulse, Mary Blackborne Thoroton, Frances Lewis, Anne Franke, Richard Levett |
| Parent(s) | Rev. Richard and Katherine Levett |
Sir Richard Levett (also spelled Richard Levet) (died 1711), Sheriff, Alderman and Lord Mayor of London, was one of the first directors of the Bank of England, an adventurer with the London East India Company and the proprietor of the trading firm Sir Richard Levett & Company. He had homes at Kew and in London's Cripplegate, close by the Haberdashers Hall. A pioneering British merchant and politician, he counted among his friends and acquaintances Samuel Pepys, Robert Blackborne, John Houblon, physician to the Royal Family and son-in-law Sir Edward Hulse, Lord Mayor Sir William Gore, his brother-in-law Chief Justice Sir John Holt, Robert Hooke, Sir Owen Buckingham, Sir Charles Eyre and others.
Although born into a once-powerful Sussex Anglo-Norman family (its surname derives from the village of Livet in Normandy), Levett's father was a country vicar, and the future Lord Mayor grew up in straitened circumstances after the family lost much of its medieval wealth. Although born with connections, Richard Levett and his brother Francis were 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 were strictly middle-class. They represented an emerging England, an England of meritocracy and hard work that trumped the old aristocratic England. (Perhaps it was not an accident that their father, Rev. Richard Levett, had Puritan sympathies.) The enterprising brothers demonstrated that through hard work and pluck, 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 a nominal Tory, he was a free market capitalist by practice.
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