Search results
When John Jackson died in 1724, Pepys' estate reverted to Anne, daughter of Archdeacon Samuel Edgeley, niece of Will Hewer and sister of Hewer Edgeley, nephew and godson of Pepys' old Admiralty employee and friend Will Hewer.
May 5, 2003 · When he died on 26 May 1703 Samuel Pepys’s claim to fame was not his diary, which would not be deciphered for another hundred years and more. It was, in the felicitous words of Oxford University’s orator, that in his years at the Navy Office he had ‘encompassed Britain with wooden walls’.
- Overview
- Life
- Early career.
Samuel Pepys (born February 23, 1633, London, England—died May 26, 1703, London) English diarist and naval administrator, celebrated for his Diary (first published in 1825), which gives a fascinating picture of the official and upper-class life of Restoration London from Jan. 1, 1660, to May 31, 1669.
Pepys was the son of a working tailor who had come to London from Huntingdonshire, in which county, and in Cambridgeshire, his family had lived for centuries as monastic reeves, rent collectors, farmers, and, more recently, small gentry. His mother, Margaret Kite, was the sister of a Whitechapel butcher. But, though of humble parentage, Pepys rose ...
Samuel Pepys (pronounced peeps) was sent, after early schooling at Huntingdon, to St. Paul’s School, London. In 1650 he was entered at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, but instead went as a sizar to Magdalene College, obtaining a scholarship on the foundation. In March 1653 he took his B.A. degree and in 1660 that of M.A. Little is known of his university career save that he was once admonished for being “scandalously overserved with drink.” In later years he became a great benefactor of his college, to which he left his famous library of books and manuscripts. He was also once offered—but refused—the provostship of King’s College, Cambridge.
In December 1655 he married a penniless beauty of 15, Elizabeth Marchant de Saint-Michel, daughter of a French Huguenot refugee. At this time he was employed as factotum in the Whitehall lodgings of his cousin Adm. Edward Montagu, later 1st earl of Sandwich, who was high in the lord protector Cromwell’s favour. In his diary Pepys recalls this humble beginning, when his young wife “used to make coal fires and wash my foul clothes with her own hand for me, poor wretch! in our little room at Lord Sandwich’s; for which I ought forever to love and admire her, and do.” While there, on March 26, 1658, he underwent a serious abdominal operation, thereafter always celebrating the anniversary of his escape by a dinner—“This being my solemn feast for my cutting of the stone.”
How Samuel's diary gives us a first-hand account of everyday life in London in the 1660s. Find out more with BBC Bitesize KS1 History.
Aug 2, 2024 · Pepys died on May 26, 1703, and on June 5 - after nearly 40 years as a parishioner at St. Olave’s - was buried at 9 o’clock at night, “in a vault by ye Communion-table.” Each year, a special service commemorating Samuel Pepys is held on or near May 26 at St. Olave’s Church.
Jan 1, 2021 · The diary of Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) gives us a fly-on-the-wall account of life during the 17th century – from the devastation of war and plague, to the triumphant return of Charles II. But did you know that Pepys ‘rescued’ a cheese during the Great Fire of London and once kept a lion as a pet?
People also ask
When did Samuel Pepys die?
How did Samuel Pepys become famous?
How did Samuel Pepys live?
Did you know Samuel Pepys had a lion as a pet?
In 1685, Charles II died and was succeeded by his brother who became James II, who Pepys served as loyally as he had Charles. After the overthrow of James in 1688, Pepys's career effectively...
