Career
Theophilus Levett served as Steward (town clerk) of Lichfield from 1721–1746, during which time he was a prominent player in the town's political affairs, occasionally narrowly averting political disaster. In 1718 and 1721 Levett narrowly escaped prosecution for sedition after declaring his Jacobite sympathies. After Levett retracted his statements, the matter was dropped but not without a storm of controversy.
The imbroglio began in 1718 when Levett prevented the Town Clerk from saying 'amen' to the final 'God Save the King' when a brief was read in church. Levett, according to testimony, had "clapt his Hand upon the Deponent's Mouth," and the Clerk "Blubbered" to the bemusement of the congregation. Three years passed before Levett again stirred up controversy. A candidate for coroner and Town Clerk, Levett was accused of wearing white roses on June 10, as well as drinking toasts to the Pretender "with other Gentlemen who were reconned the Jacobites of the Town."
Subsequently, all Levett's accusers retracted their statements, and he was elected to office as Town Clerk. Levett's accusers claimed they had been manipulated into testifying against him by local Whigs. 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. Shortly afterwards, a petition was sent to the King, signed by 185 Lichfield worthies, including Michael Johnson, the father of Samuel, a favor that Levett later repaid when he arranged a tutor's job for Samuel Johnson at the home of Thomas Whitby in Great Haywood, near Lichfield, after Johnson's father's death.
Because of his position, Levett became a major powerbroker in LIchfield. 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."
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