Egerton Bagot Byrd Levett-Scrivener

Who was Egerton Bagot Byrd Levett-Scrivener?

Captain Egerton Bagot Byrd Levett-Scrivener was a Royal Navy Flag Lieutenant and aide to Vice Admiral George Willes in the Far East. He was later promoted to Captain, and following his retirement became Bursar of Keble College, Oxford University. Born Egerton Levett, he changed his name to Levett-Scrivener on an inheritance from his aunt of Scrivener family properties at Sibton Abbey, Suffolk, which he later managed. Levett was married to the daughter of English diplomat and ambassador Sir Harry Smith Parkes.

Egerton Levett was the son of Col. Richard Byrd Levett of Milford Hall, Staffordshire and his wife Elizabeth Mary Levett. Egerton Levett entered the service of the Royal Navy, where during a posting as aide to Admiral Willes in 1884, he met Mabel Desborough Parkes, the daughter of Ambassador Parkes, who was then serving as British ambassador to China and Korea. Levett and Miss Parkes were married in 1884, and in 1885 their son Evelyn Harry Byrd Levett was born, prompting Ambassador Parkes to write "one of his happiest letters... written in January 1885 to his daughter, Mrs. Levett, on the memorable occasion when he became a grandfather."

In 1889, Levett inherited the Sibton Abbey Manor from his aunt. The property, which was the only Cistercian abbey in East Anglia, had been in the Scrivener family since its purchase in the early seventeenth century by John Scrivener, son of an Ipswich barrister and bailiff grown rich in the wool trade. The Scrivener family later purchased 20,000 acres from the Duke of Norfolk to add to their Suffolk holdings. After inheriting Sibton Abbey, Egerton Levett changed his name to Levett-Scrivener in accordance with his aunt's wishes.