Francis Levett (merchant)
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Francis Levett (1654 - 1705) was an early London merchant who, in partnership with his brother Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London, traded in tobacco and other commodities.
Francis and his brother Sir Richard were among the largest factors of their day in England, with an immense working capital estimated between £30,000 and £40,000 in 1705, buying tobacco around the world for importation into the English market.[1] The Levett brothers were labeled haberdashers, a term which formerly meant merchants who traded commodities and acted as venture capitalists as well as those who dealt in textiles. Once they had imported tobacco and other goods, the Levetts distributed the commodities to their 'chapmen' across the country through fairs, including those at Lenton, Gainsborough, Boston, Beverley and Houlden.
It was a lucrative franchise. A tax assessment for 1695 lists Francis Levett and his wife having a footman and a maid. Levett owned a country home at Enfield, Middlesex as well. (His brother, Sir Richard, fared even better, owning Kew Palace and a spacious London home.) The brothers were sons of Rev. Richard Levett of Ashwell, Rutland, and the family's roots lay in Sussex.[2][3]
The Levett brothers's accomplishments as merchants allowed them to indulge their wants in ways unfamiliar to vicars' sons. These early London merchants were straddling the old feudal economy which, abetted by increasing English political and military might, was evolving into a modern trading one. The first beneficiaries were these pioneers who, trading for their own account, risked failure in the fast-moving marketplace. The Levett brothers built an early trading juggernaut.
In 1683 Francis Levett married Susan, the daughter of Sir Thomas Holt and sister of Sir John Holt (judge), Lord Chief Justice of England.[4] Levett's brother-in-law was merchant Edward Leman, who married Sir Thomas Holt's daughter Mary by his wife Susan Peacock.[5] The London mercantile world of those days was a small club: Lord Mayor Levett, Francis's brother, had a son Richard, who became a London alderman and married the daughter of Sir John Sweetapple, goldsmith, Sheriff and alderman of the City.[6][7] These tight social and political connections helped the Levetts build their trading empire.
[edit] References
- ^ The Making of the English Middle Class: Business, Society and Family Life in London, 1660-1730, Peter Earle, University of California Press, 1989
- ^ Le Neve's pedigrees of the Knights made by King Charles II, Ed. by George Marshall L.L.D., London, 1873
- ^ A History of the County of Rutland: Volume 2, William Page (ed.), Victoria County History, 1935, British History Online
- ^ The Rulers of London 1660-1689, Centre for Metropolitan History, J.R. Woodhead, 1966, British History Online
- ^ Le Neve's pedigrees of the Knights made by King Charles II, George W. Marshall L.L.D., London, 1873
- ^ The Historical Register: Containing an Impartial Relation of all Transactions, Foreign and Domestick with a Chronological Diary, Vol. XII, London, 1727
- ^ Sweetapple Court in London was named for Sir John Sweetapple
