SECOND LIEUTENANT RICHARD WILLIAM BYRD LEVETT LEVETT
KING'S ROYAL RIFLE CORPS
10TH MARCH 1917 AGE 19
BURIED: ALBERT COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION, FRANCE
Milford, November 1916
Tonight is probably the last night I shall be at Milford before going to the front and I am writing this in case I don't come back.
I know how much you will feel it if I go under but don't forget that I shall have died for the best cause a man could have died for and as long as my death has been worthy of a Levett and a Rifleman you must only feel proud and happy.
...
I want everything to go on at Milford as if I was coming back one day: you know how fond of the place I was and I should hate to think that the old place was suffering through the break in one generation so please do everything as if I was away for a time only, and in every way keep the family traditions going.
That is one of the saddest things of the war, the way so many traditions have lapsed.
I don't want any mourning or anything to be disarranged for me.
...
Ever your loving and happy son,
R.B. Levett
Floreat Etona
Letters of an English Boy Being the Letters of Richard Byrd Levett pp 191-2
Spottiswoode, Ballantyne and Co. Ltd 1917
As his Company commander's letter made clear, Richard Levett was killed by the British barrage, a fact confirmed by Major Stafford the Battalion commander, "Your son was right under our barrage when he was killed, and there is no doubt that by keeping his men forward, he prevented the machine guns coming into action and thus saved many casualties. In consequence the attack was a brilliant success".
The "old place" referred to by Richard Byrd Levett in his letter is Milford Hall in Staffordshire, which has been in the Levett family since 1749, and in the Byrd family for longer than that. As a result of Richard Levett's death, on the death of his father in 1928, the estate passed to his sister, Dyonese, whose descendants still own it.
There is a splendid marble effigy of Richard in St Thomas's Church, Walton-on-the-Hill, Staffordshire. Dressed in the uniform of an officer of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, he lies recumbent under a Gothic awning decorated with family and regimental coats of arms.