Cecil Levita

Infobox Military Person
name=Cecil Bingham Levita
lived=January 18, 1867 - October 10, 1953


caption=
nickname=
placeofbirth=
placeofdeath=
allegiance=
branch=British Army
serviceyears=
rank=Lieutenant Colonel
unit=
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battles=Second Matabele War, Second Boer War, World War I
awards=K.C.V.O.
C.B.E.
relations=Lieutenant Colonel Harry Plumridge Levita c.1862-1919 (brother)
laterwork=Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Cecil Bingham Levita KCVO CBE (January 18, 1867-October 10, 1953) was a soldier and public service worker who eventually rose to be chairman of the London County Council in 1928.

He was the son of a German born merchant and banker of Polish Jewish parentage, Émile Levita who had emigrated to Manchester in the 1850s and his British born wife Catherine Plumridge, daughter of Hermann Philipp Rée who was from an illustrious Danish Jewish family and Catherine German, who was the niece of Admiral James Hanway Plumridge [ [http://www.jewishgen.org/Scandinavia/ree-index.htm "Hartvig Philip Rée og hans slægt"] , Josef Fischer, Copenhagen, 1912] .

Levita attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in 1886. He started his career as a soldier serving in the Second Matabele War and the Second Boer War where he was A.D.C. to Lieutenant-General Sir Baker Russell. He was later appointed a special service officer and a D.A.A.G. in the Natal Field Force. He was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the Queen's medal with three clasps. He was later to serve as G.S.O. Grade 1 in World War I.

In 1910 Levita contested the St. Ives division of Cornwall in the General Election but was unsuccessful. However, in 1911 he was elected to the London County Council as a Municipal Reformer, where he served for over 25 years serving on numerous committees including serving as chairman of the housing committee and chairman of the London County Council from 1928 to 1929. He was largely responsible for founding the King George Hospital in Ilford and also took a great interest in education, being a particular proponent of the use of the new medium of film for educational use.

His career was somewhat overshadowed by an episode in 1936 which became known as the "Talking Mongoose Case". Levita had alleged that Richard S. "Rex" Lambert, a founding editor of "The Listener" was unfit to serve on the board of the British Film Institute (on which his wife served) because Lambert had published an article about a house which was supposedly haunted by Gef the talking mongoose. Lambert then brought an action for slander against Levita which he continued to pursue despite pressure from Sir Stephen Tallents, controller of administration and the chairman of the BBC Ronald Collet Norman who was a friend of Levita's [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/heritage/in_depth/pressure/mongoose.shtml The BBC Under Pressure] , The Mongoose Case, 1936.] . Lambert won substantial damages and the case prompted an enquiry launched by then Prime Minister into the rights of a public corporation to control the extraneous activities of their employees. The enquiry resulted in practices of the Civil Service being implemented within the BBC.

He was created an M.V.O. in 1901, knighted in 1929, promoted to K.C.V.O. in 1932 and later awarded a C.B.E.. In 1917 he married Florence Woodruff, daughter of William Robb with whom he had one son and one daughter ["The Times", Obituaries, Sir Cecil Levita, October 12, 1953] . In 1930 he gave away his niece Enid Levita (daughter of his brother Arthur Francis Levita who had died in 1910 ["The Times", Funerals, November 23, 1910] ) at her marriage to Ewen Donald Cameron ["The Times", Marriages, December 18, 1930] , the grandparents of the Conservative party leader David Cameron.

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