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William Levett (vicar)
Encyclopedia
William Levett was an English clergyman. An Oxford-educated country rector
, he was a pivotal figure in the use of the blast furnace
to manufacture iron. With the patronage of the English Crown, furnaces in Sussex
under Levett's ownership cast the first iron muzzle-loader cannons in England in 1543, a development which enabled England to ultimately reconfigure the global balance-of-power by becoming an ascendant naval force. The Rev. Levett continued to perform his ministerial duties while building an early munitions empire, and left the riches he accumulated to a wide variety of charities at his death.
, Sussex, seized on emerging technologies to help establish the iron foundry industry in England. By perfecting the technology behind the iron cannon, and building a business upon it, Rev. Levett set in motion events that would make England the envy of the world's powers for its cutting-edge armaments, changing the balance of global power. Parson Levett was the first to cast iron cannons in England.
The first iron cannon manufactured in England was cast in Buxted in 1543 by Ralf Hogge
, an employee of Parson Levett, a Sussex rector with broad interests, paradoxically enough, in the emerging English armaments industry. Henry VIII's
reign was good for Parson Levett's business. While charged by the church with praying for peace, the Sussex parson's business thrived on the prospects of war.
William Levett was born at The Grove, Hollington, East Sussex
, the son of Joane (Adams) Levett and John Levett
, a large landowner and descendant of a knightly Anglo-Norman
family who owned the manor of Catsfield Levett (now simply Catsfield
), as well as property across Sussex
, including in Hollington
, St. Leonards-on-Sea, Bulverhythe
, Firle
, Hastings
, Bexhill-on-Sea
and elsewhere. Lawrence Levett inherited the family seat at Hollington, leaving his brothers the Rev. William Levett to pursue a career in the ministry, and brother John to turn to business and ironfounding.
Rev. Levett's brother John, who lived at Little Horsted
, Sussex, leveraged the family's landholdings into one of the earliest iron foundries in the Weald
of Sussex. From Levett's early efforts sprang the almost complete monopoly that the Weald enjoyed over iron gun-casting for the subsequent two centuries, yielding the region immense profits, increasing its sway on the national stage and setting the scene for England's increasing dominance of world trade and power.
Iron foundries required immense amounts of wood, converted into charcoal, to smelt the iron in blast furnaces. Timber and ore were the raw materials of smelted iron: each furnace required a permanent wood-lined pit for casting. The earliest cannons cast by the foundry belonging to the Levetts were of the Italianate style originating in Venice and copied by the English. By adapting the European style, the English turned Sussex and Kent
into the centre of the European gun-making industry.
Iron smelting was not new to the Sussex Weald
: the Romans had a forge at Oldlands in Buxted, where their coins have been found. But the large-scale forging of weaponry was new. In a very short period of time the English made themselves masters of the art of gun-making. The Sussex landscape is sprinkled with names redolent of the forges: Furnace Wood, Furnace Pond, Minepit Wood, Little Forge, Culver Wood, Slag Meadow, Huggett's Furnace, and Hammerpond.
The earliest cannons were crude affairs, "mere cylinders", wrote Sussex historian Thomas Walker Horsfield
, "fixed on sledges, and were sometimes composed of iron bars, laid side by side like the staves of a cask, and held together by iron hoops." These early cannons were so inferior to those made on the continent that the English Board of Ordnance
simply ordered abroad, importing cannons and even shot from Europe.
But in the 1540s, all that changed. "With the conscious patronage and support of the crown", notes historian N. A. M. Rodger, "the established iron industry in the Weald of Kent and Sussex was encouraged to experiment with gunfounding iron. The first iron muzzle-loaders were cast at Buxted
in 1543." In 1545, Parson Levett was ordered to produce 120 of his state-of-the-art cannons as well as a large amount of ammunition. Suddenly the English iron-masters had become the yardstick by which armorers were measured. Because of the proximity of timber, the importation of foreign (primarily French) ironworkers, and effective new forging methods, the English guns were superior to those manufactured on the European continent. The new English guns were so effective that laws were quickly passed to prevent their export to enemies on the continent.
William Levett served Buxted as its vicar for over 21 years, from 1533 to 1554 at St. Margaret's parish church. (In 1533 Levett was also named non-resident rector of a parish in Stanford Rivers
, Essex, where he apparently continued to hold the living during his lifetime, and in 1545 he was also named rector of Herstmonceux
, Sussex). In the same year that Levett was named rector of Buxted he was also named deputy to the Receiver of the King's Revenue in Sussex for a one-year term (1533–34). This curious overlapping of church and state – the vicar as tax collector – demonstrated Levett's talents, his ambition and his ability to navigate the shoals of politics, business and religion.
In 1535, two years into Levett's tenure as parish vicar, Levett's elder brother John died. The founder of the family's interest in iron founding, John Levett instructed the executors of his will (who included his brother Rev. William) to continue operating his "Irron mylles and furnesses" and to devote the profits to providing for his young children. At the time of his death, John Levett was already operating several furnaces in Sussex, producing ironworks.
By 1539, four years after the death of John Levett, parson William Levett had taken over the reins of his brother's pioneering enterprise. And he was selling iron and ironwork to the Board of Ordnance
in London. Two years later, in 1541, Levett was supplying shot to the royal forces. The King appointed the armigerous Levett his chief "goonstone maker". Four years later, in 1545, Levett had proven himself so indispensable to the Crown that the Privy Council noted in haste: "Parson Levet ordered by letter to send hither such pieces of artillery as he has already made." The following year, 1546, the Privy Council
appointed Levett to oversee the mines of the Duke of Norfolk
's Sussex estates.
Nor was Parson Levett confining his iron foundering to Sussex. Contemporaneous records show that Levett was also producing munitions and weaponry at a site close by the Tower of London
, where the Royal stores of armaments were warehoused.
Parson Levett had taken to his new sideline. Apparently he was a natural, so efficient that the Privy Council appointed him in 1546 to oversee the Sussex iron mines that had belonged to the attainted Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk
and were confiscated by the Crown. Levett employed master gun founders Charles Garrete and Pierre Baude at his Buxted furnace, as well as five other aliens (probably Frenchmen) in 1543, and six in 1550. By 1543 Levett was the leading supplier of cast-iron muzzle-loading cannons to the English forces. The discovery of one of Levett's two-pound cannons marked with the monogram of King Henry VIII and dated 1543 – seized by the Spanish in Oudewater
in Holland in 1575 – proved that Levett succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
"In the begyning", said Ralf Hogge
in a statement of 1573, "there was none that cast any gonnes or shott of yron but only pson (parson) Levet who was my mr. (master) and my p'decessor who mayde none but only for the service of the Kynges matie (majesty)." Levett had confined his manufacturing to the exclusive use of the Crown, forgoing profits from selling abroad, Hogge suggested to Queen Elizabeth, who should allow Levett's successor Hogge to enjoy the same monopoly in return for Hogge's loyalty and refusal to sell abroad.
By 1553, the Board of Ordnance
in London had purchased more than 250 of Levett's guns. At a stroke, this English parson who had the armaments business thrust on him by death in the family had morphed into a full-blown entrepreneur. Iron casting and cannon-making became England's first modern industrial economy. Old landowning families like the Sidneys, the Carylls, the Coverts and the Gratwickes rushed to cash in on the boom, which lasted for more than two centuries. The wars of Henry VIII were good for business: the 20 blast furnaces and 28 forges in Sussex in 1549 more than doubled in 25 years to 50 furnaces and 60 forges. The secret was in the English method of vertical casting.
The feudalism of medieval rural England was yielding to changing times. Wealth, as defined by landholding, was once monopolized by the ancient gentry. But the developments of the age of iron were stoking the ambitions of the entrepreneurs of the first industrial age. Among the earliest beneficiaries of this change were some of England's oldest families: the Nevilles, the Sackvilles, the Sidneys, the Boleyns, the Dudleys and the Howards. Their enormous landholdings translated into wood for furnaces, and combined with their political clout, made them candidates for the ranks of the magnates of the coming age of iron. They and their servants became ironmasters.
But the simultaneous increase in the availability of capital, the changing flux of technology (metallurgy), the availability of skilled foreign labour and the rise of an educated middle class meant that iron-making in the Weald would presage change across England. It would, in many ways, pave the way for the rise of the new industrial middle class. A trade consisting mostly of weapons would evolve into other more common tools as well: fire-backs, andiron
s, anvils, hammers, pots and pans and even grave slabs.
At the same time the constant threat of Scottish and Spanish conflict, culminating in the Spanish Armada
of 1588, hung over the iron trade and gave it resilience: one could not have enough cannons. That fact, combined with the new age of exploration and the rise of England's naval power, meant that there was an almost unlimited demand for the new armaments.
The towns of the Weald in Sussex and Kent were well-placed to capitalize on the new demand. Buxted, for instance, sat on the edge of the Ashdown Forest
, an ancient demesne
covering some 13000 acres (52.6 km²). Few woods matched the oaks of southern England for burning. Much of the woodland was in the hands of the old gentry families of the Sussex and Kent Weald.
The old county aristocracy would lead the way, making hay from the early adoption of this new technology. But capitalism is creative destruction
. The adoption of the new technology sowed the eventual demise of the old feudal landowning aristocracy. A new class of merchant-adventurers, inventors, innovators, and industrialists would slowly begin to displace the old landed fatcats.
Eventually, the dwindling woods of the Weald
, combined with new coke-fired technology, pushed England's ironworking industry north toward the Midlands and abundant coal. The catalyst for the decline of the Wealden iron industry, writes Ernest Straker in his majesterial study of the ironmasters of the Weald, "was the high price of fuel, caused by the competition of the hop industry and the rising cost of labour. In all the recorded accounts the charcoal is by far the most expensive item."
In the intervening two centuries, though, the Weald
pulsed with industrial activity, providing jobs and riches to those willing to navigate the ever-changing technology. The cutting-edge iron manufactory of its day, suggests Ernest Straker, was the Silicon Valley of its era. But like all technological revolutions, it was displaced. "In its prime it had employed a notable proportion of the inhabitants, and was not only a means of prosperity to the countryside, but a source of strength to the nation.... Little, save some of the ponds, remains to be seen to-day; many a once busy site is hardly to be distinguished in the dense tangle of brushwood and bracken that has overgrown it. The buildings have gone, almost every stick and stone has been utilised elsewhere.
In the meantime, though, the Wealden ironmasters enjoyed their day in the sun, perhaps no more than Parson Levett whose career was thrust upon him by circumstance. He became a very, very rich man. His brother John was one of the largest landowners in Sussex. At John Levett's death, the Levett brother had died possessed of more than 20 manors across Sussex. At his death nearly 20 years later, Reverend William Levett's will shows that he fared even better. The voluminous document, in which Levett named Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu
as executor, demonstrates the riches that accrued to the entrepreneurs of the coming Iron Age.
It happens that one of the first was a parson who, caught between the Bible and the bullet, chose both. It was as if the Archbishop of Canterbury
moonlighted as the CEO
of Northrop Grumman
. Levett never gave up his job as vicar as he became an ironmaster. But if Levett's straddling of the gulf between the military-industrial complex and the Holy Scripture troubled him, there was little sign of it, save for extensive donations to charity in his will.
In that document, parson Levett left money for repairs to Buxted Church and to the parsonage. He also left funds to the 'poor householders' of Buxted, as well as monies to provide for meat every Sunday for the local poor, and herrings and wheat during Lent
for the poor of Buxted, Uckfield
and Cowden
for seven years. He also left £100 to be given to poor scholars by his executors on the advice of his friends the Lord Chancellor
, the Bishop of Winchester
and Sir Anthony Browne. Levett's will, in which he bestowed more than 40 individual bequests, shows this ironmaster clergyman with a law degree was no ordinary country vicar.
Ironically, Levett's business interests afforded him protection from the country's religious strife. In 1545 Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer
removed Levett from his vicar's post in Buxted because of Levett's refusal to embrace religious reforms under King Henry VIII. But Levett was quickly reinstated. "Levet was a particularly injudicious target for Cranmer in time of war, since (bizarrely for a canon lawyer, let alone a clergyman) he was one of the government's chief agents in the Sussex armaments industry", writes Diarmaid MacCulloch in his biography of Thomas Cranmer.
Eventually, the Levett family iron interests fell to the heirs of parson Levett's brother John, chiefly the Eversfield, Chaloner and Pope families. (John Eversfield lies buried near rector Levett in the chancel of Buxted's church, and in his will of March 31, 1547, Thomas Chaloner of Lindfield leaves to "Rauf Hogg, Mr Parsone Levetes servunte tenne shilling
s). Following Rev. Levett's death, his former servant Hogge carried on the manufacture of iron until his own death in 1585. In his will over thirty years before, Levett made provisions for his young employee, leaving Hogge four pounds in cash and 'six tonne of sows' (a long piece of cast iron made by running molten metal into a sand mould). That simple gesture spoke to the success of their unlikely collaboration. Hogge's name became synonymous with Wealden iron-founding, but it was parson Levett who paved the way.
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...
, he was a pivotal figure in the use of the blast furnace
Blast furnace
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally iron.In a blast furnace, fuel and ore and flux are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while air is blown into the bottom of the chamber, so that the chemical reactions...
to manufacture iron. With the patronage of the English Crown, furnaces in Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
under Levett's ownership cast the first iron muzzle-loader cannons in England in 1543, a development which enabled England to ultimately reconfigure the global balance-of-power by becoming an ascendant naval force. The Rev. Levett continued to perform his ministerial duties while building an early munitions empire, and left the riches he accumulated to a wide variety of charities at his death.
Life
Thrust into running a family iron business, this rector of the village of BuxtedBuxted
Buxted is a village and civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex in England. The parish is situated on the Weald, north of Uckfield; the settlements of Five Ash Down, Heron's Ghyll and High Hurstwood are included within its boundaries...
, Sussex, seized on emerging technologies to help establish the iron foundry industry in England. By perfecting the technology behind the iron cannon, and building a business upon it, Rev. Levett set in motion events that would make England the envy of the world's powers for its cutting-edge armaments, changing the balance of global power. Parson Levett was the first to cast iron cannons in England.
The first iron cannon manufactured in England was cast in Buxted in 1543 by Ralf Hogge
Ralf Hogge
Ralf Hogge was an English iron-master and gun founder to the king.Working with French-born cannon-maker Pierre Baude and for his employer, parson William Levett, Hogge succeeded in casting the first iron cannon in England, in 1543...
, an employee of Parson Levett, a Sussex rector with broad interests, paradoxically enough, in the emerging English armaments industry. Henry VIII's
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
reign was good for Parson Levett's business. While charged by the church with praying for peace, the Sussex parson's business thrived on the prospects of war.
Hollington, East Sussex
Hollington is a suburb and local government ward in the northwest of Hastings, East Sussex. The area lies next to Baldslow, Ashdown, North and Conquest, and less than five miles southeast of Battle, East Sussex, the home of Battle Abbey, which commemorates the victory of William the Conqueror at...
, the son of Joane (Adams) Levett and John Levett
Levett
Levett is an Anglo-Norman territorial surname deriving from the village of Livet-en-Ouche, now Jonquerets-de-Livet, in Eure, Normandy. Ancestors of the earliest Levett family in England, the de Livets were lords of the village of Livet, and undertenants of the de Ferrers, among the most powerful of...
, a large landowner and descendant of a knightly Anglo-Norman
Anglo-Norman
The Anglo-Normans were mainly the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the Norman conquest by William the Conqueror in 1066. A small number of Normans were already settled in England prior to the conquest...
family who owned the manor of Catsfield Levett (now simply Catsfield
Catsfield
Catsfield is a village and civil parish in the Rother District of East Sussex, England. It is located six miles north of Bexhill, and three miles southwest of Battle. The village once consisted of two manors: Catsfield and Catsfield Levett...
), as well as property across Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
, including in Hollington
Hollington, East Sussex
Hollington is a suburb and local government ward in the northwest of Hastings, East Sussex. The area lies next to Baldslow, Ashdown, North and Conquest, and less than five miles southeast of Battle, East Sussex, the home of Battle Abbey, which commemorates the victory of William the Conqueror at...
, St. Leonards-on-Sea, Bulverhythe
Bulverhythe
West Marina Redirects here. For the former rail station see St Leonards West Marina or for the current station see West St Leonards Station.Bulverhythe, also known as West St Leonards, Bo Peep, Filsham, West Marina, or Harley Shute, is a suburb of Hastings, East Sussex, England with its Esplanade...
, Firle
Firle
For the suburb of Adelaide, South Australia, see Firle, South Australia.Firle is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. Firle refers to an old-English/Anglo-Saxon word fierol meaning overgrown with oak...
, Hastings
Hastings
Hastings is a town and borough in the county of East Sussex on the south coast of England. The town is located east of the county town of Lewes and south east of London, and has an estimated population of 86,900....
, Bexhill-on-Sea
Bexhill-on-Sea
Bexhill-on-Sea is a town and seaside resort in the county of East Sussex, in the south of England, within the District of Rother. It has a population of approximately 40,000...
and elsewhere. Lawrence Levett inherited the family seat at Hollington, leaving his brothers the Rev. William Levett to pursue a career in the ministry, and brother John to turn to business and ironfounding.
Rev. Levett's brother John, who lived at Little Horsted
Little Horsted
Little Horsted is a village and civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England. It is located two miles south of Uckfield, on the A22 road....
, Sussex, leveraged the family's landholdings into one of the earliest iron foundries in the Weald
Weald
The Weald is the name given to an area in South East England situated between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It should be regarded as three separate parts: the sandstone "High Weald" in the centre; the clay "Low Weald" periphery; and the Greensand Ridge which...
of Sussex. From Levett's early efforts sprang the almost complete monopoly that the Weald enjoyed over iron gun-casting for the subsequent two centuries, yielding the region immense profits, increasing its sway on the national stage and setting the scene for England's increasing dominance of world trade and power.
Iron foundries required immense amounts of wood, converted into charcoal, to smelt the iron in blast furnaces. Timber and ore were the raw materials of smelted iron: each furnace required a permanent wood-lined pit for casting. The earliest cannons cast by the foundry belonging to the Levetts were of the Italianate style originating in Venice and copied by the English. By adapting the European style, the English turned Sussex and Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
into the centre of the European gun-making industry.
Iron smelting was not new to the Sussex Weald
Weald
The Weald is the name given to an area in South East England situated between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It should be regarded as three separate parts: the sandstone "High Weald" in the centre; the clay "Low Weald" periphery; and the Greensand Ridge which...
: the Romans had a forge at Oldlands in Buxted, where their coins have been found. But the large-scale forging of weaponry was new. In a very short period of time the English made themselves masters of the art of gun-making. The Sussex landscape is sprinkled with names redolent of the forges: Furnace Wood, Furnace Pond, Minepit Wood, Little Forge, Culver Wood, Slag Meadow, Huggett's Furnace, and Hammerpond.
The earliest cannons were crude affairs, "mere cylinders", wrote Sussex historian Thomas Walker Horsfield
Thomas Walker Horsfield
Rev. Thomas Walker Horsfield FSA , was an English Nonconformist minister, topographer, and historian best known for his works The History and Antiquities of Lewes and The History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex .-Life:He was the eldest of six children of James Horsfield and Ann...
, "fixed on sledges, and were sometimes composed of iron bars, laid side by side like the staves of a cask, and held together by iron hoops." These early cannons were so inferior to those made on the continent that the English Board of Ordnance
Board of Ordnance
The Board of Ordnance was a British government body responsible for the supply of armaments and munitions to the Royal Navy and British Army. It was also responsible for providing artillery trains for armies and maintaining coastal fortresses and, later, management of the artillery and engineer...
simply ordered abroad, importing cannons and even shot from Europe.
But in the 1540s, all that changed. "With the conscious patronage and support of the crown", notes historian N. A. M. Rodger, "the established iron industry in the Weald of Kent and Sussex was encouraged to experiment with gunfounding iron. The first iron muzzle-loaders were cast at Buxted
Buxted
Buxted is a village and civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex in England. The parish is situated on the Weald, north of Uckfield; the settlements of Five Ash Down, Heron's Ghyll and High Hurstwood are included within its boundaries...
in 1543." In 1545, Parson Levett was ordered to produce 120 of his state-of-the-art cannons as well as a large amount of ammunition. Suddenly the English iron-masters had become the yardstick by which armorers were measured. Because of the proximity of timber, the importation of foreign (primarily French) ironworkers, and effective new forging methods, the English guns were superior to those manufactured on the European continent. The new English guns were so effective that laws were quickly passed to prevent their export to enemies on the continent.
William Levett served Buxted as its vicar for over 21 years, from 1533 to 1554 at St. Margaret's parish church. (In 1533 Levett was also named non-resident rector of a parish in Stanford Rivers
Stanford Rivers
Stanford Rivers is a village and civil parish in the Epping Forest district of Essex, England. It is located North-East of Chipping Ongar, North-West of North Weald Bassett and South-East of Kelvedon Hatch.-External links:* *...
, Essex, where he apparently continued to hold the living during his lifetime, and in 1545 he was also named rector of Herstmonceux
Herstmonceux
Herstmonceux is a village and civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England. The parish includes Herstmonceux Castle, the village of Cowbeech and a number of smaller hamlets.-History:...
, Sussex). In the same year that Levett was named rector of Buxted he was also named deputy to the Receiver of the King's Revenue in Sussex for a one-year term (1533–34). This curious overlapping of church and state – the vicar as tax collector – demonstrated Levett's talents, his ambition and his ability to navigate the shoals of politics, business and religion.
By 1539, four years after the death of John Levett, parson William Levett had taken over the reins of his brother's pioneering enterprise. And he was selling iron and ironwork to the Board of Ordnance
Board of Ordnance
The Board of Ordnance was a British government body responsible for the supply of armaments and munitions to the Royal Navy and British Army. It was also responsible for providing artillery trains for armies and maintaining coastal fortresses and, later, management of the artillery and engineer...
in London. Two years later, in 1541, Levett was supplying shot to the royal forces. The King appointed the armigerous Levett his chief "goonstone maker". Four years later, in 1545, Levett had proven himself so indispensable to the Crown that the Privy Council noted in haste: "Parson Levet ordered by letter to send hither such pieces of artillery as he has already made." The following year, 1546, the Privy Council
Privy council
A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the monarch's closest advisors to give confidential advice on...
appointed Levett to oversee the mines of the Duke of Norfolk
Duke of Norfolk
The Duke of Norfolk is the premier duke in the peerage of England, and also, as Earl of Arundel, the premier earl. The Duke of Norfolk is, moreover, the Earl Marshal and hereditary Marshal of England. The seat of the Duke of Norfolk is Arundel Castle in Sussex, although the title refers to the...
's Sussex estates.
Nor was Parson Levett confining his iron foundering to Sussex. Contemporaneous records show that Levett was also producing munitions and weaponry at a site close by the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
, where the Royal stores of armaments were warehoused.
Parson Levett had taken to his new sideline. Apparently he was a natural, so efficient that the Privy Council appointed him in 1546 to oversee the Sussex iron mines that had belonged to the attainted Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, KG, Earl Marshal was a prominent Tudor politician. He was uncle to Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, two of the wives of King Henry VIII, and played a major role in the machinations behind these marriages...
and were confiscated by the Crown. Levett employed master gun founders Charles Garrete and Pierre Baude at his Buxted furnace, as well as five other aliens (probably Frenchmen) in 1543, and six in 1550. By 1543 Levett was the leading supplier of cast-iron muzzle-loading cannons to the English forces. The discovery of one of Levett's two-pound cannons marked with the monogram of King Henry VIII and dated 1543 – seized by the Spanish in Oudewater
Oudewater
Oudewater is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht.-Population centres :The municipality of Oudewater consists of the following cities, towns, villages and/or districts: Hekendorp, Oudewater, Papekop, Snelrewaard....
in Holland in 1575 – proved that Levett succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
"In the begyning", said Ralf Hogge
Ralf Hogge
Ralf Hogge was an English iron-master and gun founder to the king.Working with French-born cannon-maker Pierre Baude and for his employer, parson William Levett, Hogge succeeded in casting the first iron cannon in England, in 1543...
in a statement of 1573, "there was none that cast any gonnes or shott of yron but only pson (parson) Levet who was my mr. (master) and my p'decessor who mayde none but only for the service of the Kynges matie (majesty)." Levett had confined his manufacturing to the exclusive use of the Crown, forgoing profits from selling abroad, Hogge suggested to Queen Elizabeth, who should allow Levett's successor Hogge to enjoy the same monopoly in return for Hogge's loyalty and refusal to sell abroad.
By 1553, the Board of Ordnance
Board of Ordnance
The Board of Ordnance was a British government body responsible for the supply of armaments and munitions to the Royal Navy and British Army. It was also responsible for providing artillery trains for armies and maintaining coastal fortresses and, later, management of the artillery and engineer...
in London had purchased more than 250 of Levett's guns. At a stroke, this English parson who had the armaments business thrust on him by death in the family had morphed into a full-blown entrepreneur. Iron casting and cannon-making became England's first modern industrial economy. Old landowning families like the Sidneys, the Carylls, the Coverts and the Gratwickes rushed to cash in on the boom, which lasted for more than two centuries. The wars of Henry VIII were good for business: the 20 blast furnaces and 28 forges in Sussex in 1549 more than doubled in 25 years to 50 furnaces and 60 forges. The secret was in the English method of vertical casting.
The feudalism of medieval rural England was yielding to changing times. Wealth, as defined by landholding, was once monopolized by the ancient gentry. But the developments of the age of iron were stoking the ambitions of the entrepreneurs of the first industrial age. Among the earliest beneficiaries of this change were some of England's oldest families: the Nevilles, the Sackvilles, the Sidneys, the Boleyns, the Dudleys and the Howards. Their enormous landholdings translated into wood for furnaces, and combined with their political clout, made them candidates for the ranks of the magnates of the coming age of iron. They and their servants became ironmasters.
But the simultaneous increase in the availability of capital, the changing flux of technology (metallurgy), the availability of skilled foreign labour and the rise of an educated middle class meant that iron-making in the Weald would presage change across England. It would, in many ways, pave the way for the rise of the new industrial middle class. A trade consisting mostly of weapons would evolve into other more common tools as well: fire-backs, andiron
Andiron
An andiron is a horizontal iron bar upon which logs are laid for burning in an open fireplace. They are usually used in pairs to build up a firedog, sometimes called a dog or dog-iron. In older eras An andiron (older form anderne; med. Lat. andena, anderia) is a horizontal iron bar upon which logs...
s, anvils, hammers, pots and pans and even grave slabs.
At the same time the constant threat of Scottish and Spanish conflict, culminating in the Spanish Armada
Spanish Armada
This article refers to the Battle of Gravelines, for the modern navy of Spain, see Spanish NavyThe Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, with the intention of overthrowing Elizabeth I of England to stop English...
of 1588, hung over the iron trade and gave it resilience: one could not have enough cannons. That fact, combined with the new age of exploration and the rise of England's naval power, meant that there was an almost unlimited demand for the new armaments.
Ashdown Forest
Ashdown Forest is an ancient area of tranquil open heathland occupying the highest sandy ridge-top of the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is situated some south of London in the county of East Sussex, England...
, an ancient demesne
Demesne
In the feudal system the demesne was all the land, not necessarily all contiguous to the manor house, which was retained by a lord of the manor for his own use and support, under his own management, as distinguished from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants...
covering some 13000 acres (52.6 km²). Few woods matched the oaks of southern England for burning. Much of the woodland was in the hands of the old gentry families of the Sussex and Kent Weald.
The old county aristocracy would lead the way, making hay from the early adoption of this new technology. But capitalism is creative destruction
Creative destruction
Creative destruction is a term originally derived from Marxist economic theory which refers to the linked processes of the accumulation and annihilation of wealth under capitalism. These processes were first described in The Communist Manifesto and were expanded in Marx's Grundrisse and "Volume...
. The adoption of the new technology sowed the eventual demise of the old feudal landowning aristocracy. A new class of merchant-adventurers, inventors, innovators, and industrialists would slowly begin to displace the old landed fatcats.
Eventually, the dwindling woods of the Weald
Weald
The Weald is the name given to an area in South East England situated between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It should be regarded as three separate parts: the sandstone "High Weald" in the centre; the clay "Low Weald" periphery; and the Greensand Ridge which...
, combined with new coke-fired technology, pushed England's ironworking industry north toward the Midlands and abundant coal. The catalyst for the decline of the Wealden iron industry, writes Ernest Straker in his majesterial study of the ironmasters of the Weald, "was the high price of fuel, caused by the competition of the hop industry and the rising cost of labour. In all the recorded accounts the charcoal is by far the most expensive item."
In the intervening two centuries, though, the Weald
Weald
The Weald is the name given to an area in South East England situated between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It should be regarded as three separate parts: the sandstone "High Weald" in the centre; the clay "Low Weald" periphery; and the Greensand Ridge which...
pulsed with industrial activity, providing jobs and riches to those willing to navigate the ever-changing technology. The cutting-edge iron manufactory of its day, suggests Ernest Straker, was the Silicon Valley of its era. But like all technological revolutions, it was displaced. "In its prime it had employed a notable proportion of the inhabitants, and was not only a means of prosperity to the countryside, but a source of strength to the nation.... Little, save some of the ponds, remains to be seen to-day; many a once busy site is hardly to be distinguished in the dense tangle of brushwood and bracken that has overgrown it. The buildings have gone, almost every stick and stone has been utilised elsewhere.
In the meantime, though, the Wealden ironmasters enjoyed their day in the sun, perhaps no more than Parson Levett whose career was thrust upon him by circumstance. He became a very, very rich man. His brother John was one of the largest landowners in Sussex. At John Levett's death, the Levett brother had died possessed of more than 20 manors across Sussex. At his death nearly 20 years later, Reverend William Levett's will shows that he fared even better. The voluminous document, in which Levett named Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu
Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu
Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu KG PC was an English peer during the Tudor period.He was the eldest son of Sir Anthony Browne...
as executor, demonstrates the riches that accrued to the entrepreneurs of the coming Iron Age.
It happens that one of the first was a parson who, caught between the Bible and the bullet, chose both. It was as if the Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
moonlighted as the CEO
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
of Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American global aerospace and defense technology company formed by the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company was the fourth-largest defense contractor in the world as of 2010, and the largest builder of naval vessels. Northrop Grumman employs over...
. Levett never gave up his job as vicar as he became an ironmaster. But if Levett's straddling of the gulf between the military-industrial complex and the Holy Scripture troubled him, there was little sign of it, save for extensive donations to charity in his will.
In that document, parson Levett left money for repairs to Buxted Church and to the parsonage. He also left funds to the 'poor householders' of Buxted, as well as monies to provide for meat every Sunday for the local poor, and herrings and wheat during Lent
Lent
In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...
for the poor of Buxted, Uckfield
Uckfield
-Development:The local Tesco has proposed the redevelopment of the central town area as has the town council. The Hub has recently been completed, having been acquired for an unknown figure, presumed to be about half a million pounds...
and Cowden
Cowden
Cowden is a small village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. The parish is located on the northern slopes of the Weald, south-west of Tonbridge. The old High Street has Grade II listed cottages and village houses, and there is an inn called The Fountain.-History:The...
for seven years. He also left £100 to be given to poor scholars by his executors on the advice of his friends the Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
, the Bishop of Winchester
Bishop of Winchester
The Bishop of Winchester is the head of the Church of England diocese of Winchester, with his cathedra at Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire.The bishop is one of five Church of England bishops to be among the Lords Spiritual regardless of their length of service. His diocese is one of the oldest and...
and Sir Anthony Browne. Levett's will, in which he bestowed more than 40 individual bequests, shows this ironmaster clergyman with a law degree was no ordinary country vicar.
Ironically, Levett's business interests afforded him protection from the country's religious strife. In 1545 Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...
removed Levett from his vicar's post in Buxted because of Levett's refusal to embrace religious reforms under King Henry VIII. But Levett was quickly reinstated. "Levet was a particularly injudicious target for Cranmer in time of war, since (bizarrely for a canon lawyer, let alone a clergyman) he was one of the government's chief agents in the Sussex armaments industry", writes Diarmaid MacCulloch in his biography of Thomas Cranmer.
Eventually, the Levett family iron interests fell to the heirs of parson Levett's brother John, chiefly the Eversfield, Chaloner and Pope families. (John Eversfield lies buried near rector Levett in the chancel of Buxted's church, and in his will of March 31, 1547, Thomas Chaloner of Lindfield leaves to "Rauf Hogg, Mr Parsone Levetes servunte tenne shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s). Following Rev. Levett's death, his former servant Hogge carried on the manufacture of iron until his own death in 1585. In his will over thirty years before, Levett made provisions for his young employee, leaving Hogge four pounds in cash and 'six tonne of sows' (a long piece of cast iron made by running molten metal into a sand mould). That simple gesture spoke to the success of their unlikely collaboration. Hogge's name became synonymous with Wealden iron-founding, but it was parson Levett who paved the way.
External links
- Irons Guns After the English Fashion, H. R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1957
- N.A.M. Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain, W.W. Norton & Company, Great Britain, 1998
- Paul E.J. Hammer, Elizabeth's Wars: Government and Society in Tudor England, Macmillan, Great Britain, 2004
- St. Margaret the Queen, Buxted, Sussex, built in 1250, church of Rev. William Levett
- 'Pedigree of Levett of Sussex', The Visitations of the County of Sussex Made and Taken in the Years 1530, Thomas Benolt, John Philipot, George Owen, John Burroughs, Richard St. George, Printed in London, 1905
- The Will of Richard Adames, 16 February, 1523, Kent Archaeological Society
- Tower of London: British Iron Cannons, Flickr.com
Further reading
- The Fortunes of Some Gentry Families of Elizabethan Sussex, The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 11, No. 3 (1959), pp. 467–483
- Buxted the Beautiful, K.H. Macdermott, Pell & Son, Brighton, Sussex, 1929
- A Compendious History of Sussex, Vol. I, Mark Antony Lower, Brighton, 1870
- The History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex, Thomas Walker HorsfieldThomas Walker HorsfieldRev. Thomas Walker Horsfield FSA , was an English Nonconformist minister, topographer, and historian best known for his works The History and Antiquities of Lewes and The History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex .-Life:He was the eldest of six children of James Horsfield and Ann...
, Lewes, 1835 - The Queen's Gunstonemaker, An Account of Ralph Hogge, Elizabethan Ironmaster & Gunfounder, Edmund Teesdale, Lindel Publishing Company, Seaford, Sussex, 1984. ISBN 0950235466
- Brian Awty & Christopher Whittick, 'The lordship of Canterbury, iron-founding at Buxted, and the continental antecedents of cannon-founding in the Weald', Sussex Archaeological Collections, 140 (2004 for 2002), 71-81. (PDF file)