Thomas Levett

Thomas Levett (1594 - ca. 1655), was a High Sheriff of Rutland.

Levett was born in High Melton, Yorkshire, son of Thomas Levett. He was married to Margaret Lindley, daugher of John Lindley of Leathley, Yorkshire. Through his marriage, Levett was related to Sir Guy Palmes, MP for Rutland from 1621-22. (Palmes was eventually heavily fined by Parliament and pardoned for his Royalist sympathies.) In spite of his familial relationship with Palmes, Levett apparently favoured the Parliamentary cause against the King. In June 1647 he contributed towards the Parliament's "Ordinance for the raising of Moneyes to be imployed towards the maintenance of Forces within this Kingdome, under the Command of Sir Thomas Fairfax Knight," as documents from Parliament put, as well as "for the speedy transporting of, and paying the Forces for the carrying on the Warre of Ireland."

Tixover Church, Tixover, Rutland

Levett was also interested in antiquarian pursuits. He came into possession of the Chartulary of St. John of Pontefract Abbey, a collection of early documents of Yorkshire kept by the Cluniac abbey founded in 1090. The Chartulary was later published by the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, a publication which allowed historians a rare glimpse into medieval Yorkshire. Levett gave the document to the well-known Yorkshire historian Roger Dodsworth in 1626-27, according to Dodsworth. As Joseph Hunter noted in his "Deanery of Doncaster," Dodsworth "was intimate with Levett of Tixover, who gave him a Chartulary of the Cluniacs of Pontefract." Within the Chartulary, Dodsworth wrote in his own handwriting to commemorate the fact that Levett had given him the manuscripts: "ex dono Tomae Levett de High Melton, in anno 1626-27."

How Levett came into possession of the Chartulary is unknown, but the Levetts of High Melton and Normanton had been prominent in Yorkshire for centuries and had once controlled Roche Abbey. In the Monasticon Anglicanum published by the antiquarian Sir William Dugdale in 1655, is the abstact of a deed from Roche Abbey and later apparently given by Levett to Dugdale. It reads: "ex autographo penes Thomam Levet super de Tikesover in com. Rutland." As a descendant of the family who had controlled the Abbey at Roche centuries earlier, Thomas Levett had apparently inherited many early manuscripts associated with the Levetts of Yorkshire.

External links

• Thomas Levett, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Henry Fitz-Gilbert Waters, 1913
• Levett coat of arms, Sable a fesse embattled between three leopards heads erased Argent langued Gules, St. James Church, High Melton, Yorkshire
• Lindley and Palmes, The Otley Brass, All Saints Church, Otley, Yorkshire
• Pedigree of Levett of Normanton and High Melton, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Henry Fitz-Gilbert Waters, 1913
• Pedigree of Levett of High Melton, Yorkshire, Thurcroftweb

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