Sir James Leveson of Lilleshall

James Leveson of Lilleshall, a wealthy Wolverhampton businessman, one of the Merchants of the Staple who had the monopoly of wool exports from England. Leveson had made a fortune not only from trade but also from leasing the property of St Peter's Collegiate Church in Wolverhampton: in 1550, James's cousin John and Robert Brooke took on most of the college property at fixed low rents on perpetual leases - a ruse by the prebendaries to profit doubly from the dissolution of the institution. James Leveson had bought Lilleshall Abbey, a dissolved Augustinian house in Shropshire in 1539, and thereafter it became the seat of his branch of the Leveson family.

Notes

Reference in "Donington Church and Lordship," by H. F. J. Vaughan, in Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, vol. 6, publ. 1883, p. 16, states:

James Leveson of Wolverhampton, merchant of the Staple, and brother of Nicholas, married twice. By his first wife (a daughter of Wrottesley) he had issue Sir Richard of Lilleshall, Edward of Perton, and Walter, and a daughter, Joan, wife, firstly of Skeffington, and secondly of Fowke; by his second, Margaret, daughter of William Offley, he had Elizabeth, wife of Walter Aston of Tixall ..., and Joyce, obt. 1608, wife of Sir John Giffard of Chillington, obt. 1611, ...

Levesons were active in wool trade in Wolverhampton since ca 1354. From: http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/articles/electronic/wool.htm (broken link)

links

• http://www.halhed.com/t4r/getperson.php?personID=I6037&tree=tree1 (goes nowhere, just flashes/blips and back to this page)