Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom
Levett was the son of John Levett of Wychnor Park, Staffordshire and his wife Sophia Eliza Kennedy, the daughter of Honorary Robert Kennedy, third son of Archibald Kennedy, 11th Earl of Cassilis. Levett was a Captain in the 1st Life Guards and inherited Wychnor on the death of his father.
Levett also owned Smallwood Manor at Uttoxeter. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for Lichfield in at a by-election in July 1880, but when the parliamentary borough of Lichfield was abolished at the 1885 general election, he did not stand again. He was a Justice of the Peace and Doctor of Laws for Staffordsire and served on Staffordshire County Council for Lichfield from 1889 until his death in 1899.
Originally from Sussex, Levett"s ancestors came to Staffordshire in the eighteenth century.
Captain Theophilus Levett was, unsurprisingly for the era, a fox-hunter, and he was long associated with the Meynell hounds, the fox-hunting group established by Hugo Meynell, who had defeated Captain Levett"s father John when he ran to keep his seat in Parliament.
"He was a remarkably good shot," noted an obituary of Levett, "and the way he used to work his coverts made the hearts of true sportsmen to rejoice." (The covert, in fox-hunting jargon, means a patch of woods or brush where a fox might be found)
Levett married Lady Jane Lissey Harriet Feilding, daughter of William Feilding, 7th Earl of Denbigh on 10 January 1856, and they had a son Theophilus Basil Percy Levett, a Justice of the Peace for Staffordshire who married Lady Margaret Emily Ashley-Cooper, daughter of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 8th Earl of Shaftesbury. Theophilus John Levett was named for his ancestor Theophilus Levett, who had served as Lichfield Town Clerk in the early eighteenth century.
A third child, a daughter, never married.
22nd United Kingdom Parliament]
Theophilus John Levett was a member of London"s Carlton Club.
