Who was Pepys?

Samuel Pepys was born in London on 23 February 1633, the fifth of eleven children, although by the time he was seven only three of his siblings, all younger, had survived. He was sent to grammar school at Huntingdon during the English Civil War (1642-1651), returning later to London and attending St Paul’s School. Following this he went to Cambridge where he attended Trinity Hall and then Magdalene colleges. Not long after taking his degree in 1654 he was employed as secretary in London by Edward Mountagu, a distant relative who was now a Councillor of State.

In 1655 Pepys married Elizabeth St Michel and at some point after 1656, while still attached to Mountagu’s service, Pepys became clerk to George Downing, a Teller of the Receipt in the Exchequer. However, he and his wife separated for a while (for unknown reasons) and in 1658 he had a bladder stone removed in a dangerous operation. Later the same year Pepys and his wife moved from a single room in Mountagu’s lodgings to Axe Yard near the palace of Westminster, where he was living when starting the diary in 1660.

Pepys was a practical man of business but also had a wide-ranging appetite for knowledge. His classical and mathematical education was the basis from which he explored the arts and sciences and he was an accomplished musician.

London offered him all the diversions he craved for: music and women (to the beauty of both he stood in a ‘strange slavery’), friendships, the casual sociableness of the taverns, above all — what only a great town can give — the constant stimulus of new experience. Pepys was always ‘with child to see any strange thing’ — living and savouring every moment of his life with an intensity which never failed, despite occasional spasms of guilt. There can have been few young men in London with an appetite for pleasure to compare with his in sharpness and range. (Latham and Matthews, as above, p.xix)

On 1 January 1660, Pepys began to keep a diary. 

Pepys lived, worked, and wrote his diary through a number of significant historical events, among them the Second Dutch War (1665–1667), the Great Plague of London of 1665, and the Great Fire of London (1666). On several occasions in 1667 and 1668, he appeared before a select committee of Parliament to defend the record of the Navy Board and to argue for sufficient funds to maintain the fleet.^[3]

Throughout the period of the diary, his health, particularly his eyesight, suffered from the long hours he worked. At the end of May 1669, he reluctantly concluded that, for the sake of his eyes, he should completely stop writing and, from then on, only dictate to his clerks, which meant that he could no longer keep his diary.

An entry from Pepys diary in March of 1659.

Friday 23 March 1659/60

Up early, carried my Lord’s will in a black box to Mr. William Montagu for him to keep for him. Then to the barber’s and put on my cravat there. So to my Lord again, who was almost ready to be gone and had staid for me. Hither came Gilb. Holland, and brought me a stick rapier and Shelston a sugar-loaf, and had brought his wife who he said was a very pretty woman to the Ship tavern hard by for me to see but I could not go. Young Reeve also brought me a little perspective glass which I bought for my Lord, it cost me 8s. So after that my Lord in Sir H. Wright’s coach with Captain Isham, Mr. Thomas, John Crew, W. Howe, and I in a Hackney to the Tower, where the barges staid for us; my Lord and the Captain in one, and W. Howe and I, &c., in the other, to the Long Reach, where the Swiftsure lay at anchor; (in our way we saw the great breach which the late high water had made, to the loss of many 1000l. to the people about Limehouse.) Soon as my Lord on board, the guns went off bravely from the ships. And a little while after comes the Vice-Admiral Lawson, and seemed very respectful to my Lord, and so did the rest of the Commanders of the frigates that were thereabouts. I to the cabin allotted for me, which was the best that any had that belonged to my Lord. I got out some things out of my chest for writing and to work presently, Mr, Burr and I both. I supped at the deck table with Mr. Sheply. We were late writing of orders for the getting of ships ready, &c.; and also making of others to all the seaports between Hastings and Yarmouth, to stop all dangerous persons that are going or coming between Flanders and there. After that to bed in my cabin, which was but short; however I made shift with it and slept very well, and the weather being good I was not sick at all yet, I know not what I shall be.