A Pepys Back In Time

He was the greatest diarist of all time. Now, 350 years since his final journal entry, we uncover the colourful life of Samuel Pepys

- Laura Silverman

Samuel Pepys is fortunate not to live today. He would, one imagines, be addicted to social media and would be constantly vowing to undertake a digital detox for the good of his mental health. For even the most prolific Facebook scribbler would struggle to match his output. Pepys’ diary comprised more than a million words. It spanned 1660 to 1669 – a period scarred by the Great Plague, the Great Fire of London and the Second Anglo-Dutch War (a squabble over trade routes) – and mixes social commentary with affairs and morsels about food.

But who was Pepys? Aside from a diarist, he was to become a big fish in the naval world. When he began his journal, on 1 January, 1660, he had just been appointed Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board. During his career, he sailed on the ship that brought King Charles II back from exile in the Netherlands and worked closely with James, Duke of York (later King James II), the Lord High Admiral. He rose to Chief Secretary to the Admiralty. Later in life, he also became a Member of Parliament (Tory, for Castle Rising and then Harwich) and President of the Royal Society (conversing extensively with Sir Isaac Newton).

His beginnings were lowly. Born in 1633 in the City of London, Pepys’ father was a tailor, his family barely literate. The young Pepys, the fifth of 11 children, started off at grammar school, before going to the University of Cambridge. His naval achievements were due largely to ambition and talent – plus a dash of patronage (his family had distant connections).