Theophilus Levett

Theophilus Levett (1693–1746) was an attorney and early town clerk of Lichfield, Staffordshire, a prominent Staffordshire politician and landowner, and a member of a thriving Lichfield social and intellectual circle which included his friends Samuel Johnson, the physician Erasmus Darwin, the writer Anna Seward and the actor David Garrick, among others.

[6] Hardpressed for cash, Johnson and his mother had only one substantial asset after the death of his father, who had invested in a parchment-making operation that failed.

[7] Theophilus Levett's daughter Anne was, according to Anna Seward, the early paramour of actor David Garrick.

[8] The episode prompted Seward to pen her poem Portrait of Miss Levett about the fickle Lichfield beauty.

One accuser, a "poor servant girl" named Alice Hayes, even claimed that one prominent local Whig gentleman had promised to marry her if she swore falsely against the aspiring politico.

In a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth and the Deputy Lieutenants from 1745, Levett gives a snapshot of the influence he wielded, and showed there was little doubt about where he stood on the question of the Monarchy.

"By command of Lord Gower," Levett wrote, "I beg to call a meeting for 9 October to consider whether it will be more for his Majesty's service and the ease of the county, to call out the militia or to raise some companies of foot and a troop or two of horse, by virtue of commissions to be granted by Lord Gower, with a declaration that they shall be disbanded as soon as the present troubles are over.