Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was born In Salisbury Court off Fleet Street. His father, John, was a tailor, his mother Margaret Kite was sister of a Whitechapel butcher and Samuel was fifth in a line of eleven children. He attended the Grammar School at Huntingdon, whose ex-pupils included Oliver Cromwell, then returned to London after the civil war and entered St Paul's School.
He took his bachelor's degree in 1654 and entered the service of his father's cousin Sir Edward Montagu as his secretary and agent in London. As Mountagu's responsibilities grew, so did Pepys', looking after the Montagu estate and business in London, during absences abroad on naval service.
Pepys accompanied Montagu's fleet to the Netherlands to bring Charles II back from exile. Montagu was made Earl of Sandwich and the position of Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board was secured by Pepys. On the Navy Board, Pepys proved to be a more able and efficient worker than colleagues in higher positions. He came to play a significant role in the board's activities.
As well as providing a first-hand account of the Restoration, Pepys's diary is notable for its detailed and unique accounts of several other major events of the 1660s. In particular it is an invaluable source for the study of the Second Anglo-Dutch War of 1665-7, of the Great Plague of 1665, and of the Great Fire of London in 1666.
AOS Naval Non-Fiction |
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| Series: n/a | ||
| Year | Book | Comment |
| Samuel Pepys Memoires of the Royal Navy, 1690 | A new version of the diary with a foreward by David Davies | |