Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys kept a diary for nine years that is the fullest account of daily life in seventeenth-century London, and separately rebuilt the Royal Navy. Born in London in 1633, the son of a tailor, he was a scholarship boy at St Paul's and Cambridge, and watched the execution of Charles I as a schoolboy. He entered the household of his cousin Edward Montagu, later Earl of Sandwich, and in 1660 sailed with the fleet that brought Charles II back from exile, being appointed Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board on his return. He began the diary on 1 January 1660 and kept it until May 1669, writing in Thomas Shelton's shorthand with sensitive passages disguised in a mix of Spanish, French and Latin. He recorded everything without arranging it: what he ate, what he paid, his music, his quarrels with his wife Elizabeth, his repeated adulteries with servants and other men's wives, his fear of poverty and his advancement. It contains the great first-hand accounts of the plague of 1665, the Great Fire of 1666 — where he suggested pulling down houses to make firebreaks and buried his wine and a parmesan cheese in the garden — and the Dutch raid on the Medway. He stopped because he believed he was going blind, which he was not. He became Secretary to the Admiralty, professionalised the officer corps by examination, established victualling and dockyard standards, and expanded the fleet by thirty ships. He was imprisoned twice on suspicion of Popish plotting, was a president of the Royal Society, and died in 1703. The diary was deciphered and published in 1825.
- Lived: 1633 CE – 1703 CE
- Nationality: English
- Roles: diarist, naval_administrator, civil_servant
