Set piece · Who he was
Who Samuel Pepys was
Samuel Pepys was a twenty-six-year-old government clerk, poor but well connected, when he began his diary on 1 January 1660. Over the next nine years and five months he rose to be one of the most capable men in the Navy, and he wrote it all down in shorthand, often the same day, sometimes a week or more later. He wrote just as frankly about striking his wife and servants, and about his sexual advances to other women, many of whom depended on him.
Reading him today: how this site handles his violence, his treatment of women and the prejudices of his time.
- Clerk of the Acts
His patron, Edward Montagu (“my Lord”; Earl of Sandwich from July 1660), gets him the post of Clerk of the Acts in June 1660: secretary to the Navy Board and a full member of it. It comes with a house at the Navy Office in Seething Lane, near the Tower, and from July a salary of £350 a year.
I got my warrant from the Duke to be Clerk of the Acts
29 Jun 1660 Wheatley, Introduction (1893) (opens in a new tab)- Wife
Elizabeth, née St Michel, daughter of a French Huguenot. They married in 1655, when she was fourteen or fifteen: the register gives 1 December, but he kept 10 October as their wedding day. She died in November 1669, aged twenty-nine.
This night is kept in lieu of yesterday, for my wedding day of ten years
11 Oct 1665 Wheatley, Introduction (1893) (opens in a new tab)- Women
Throughout the diary he made sexual advances to women who depended on him: servants, the wives of men seeking Navy posts, and Deb Willet, his wife's young companion. He records groping them and, at least once, forcing himself on a woman, often in a private mix of French, Spanish and Latin. His Victorian editor, Henry B. Wheatley, cut the most explicit passages. In October 1668 Elizabeth found him embracing Deb; Deb was sent away, and he went on following her through the streets. 25 Oct 1668
- Mrs Bagwell, whose husband wanted a post 20 Oct 1664
- forcing himself on Mrs Bagwell 20 Dec 1664
- his maid Jane 16 Sep 1668
- Deb leaves 14 Nov 1668
- he follows Deb 15 Apr 1669
- Temper
He beat his servants (a maid with a broom, his servant boy until he was out of breath himself), made his wife beat their young maid and shut her in the cellar all night, pulled Elizabeth by the nose in quarrels, and struck her:
such a blow as the poor wretch did cry out
19 Dec 1664- the maid and the broom 1 Dec 1660
- his servant boy 24 Apr 1663
- pulling Elizabeth's nose 5 Apr 1664
- the young maid 19 Feb 1665
- pulling her nose again 12 Jul 1667
- Origins
A London tailor's son, born on 23 February 1633, he went to St Paul's School and Magdalene College, Cambridge. In March 1658 he survived an operation to cut out a bladder stone, and he kept the day every year with a feast:
This being my solemn feast for my cutting of the stone
26 Mar 1664 Wheatley, Introduction (1893) (opens in a new tab)- Kept strictly
He wrote in shorthand, often the same day, but in busy spells a week or more later from notes and memory, and kept it to himself: in March 1669 he thought William Coventry, his former Navy colleague, the only man he had ever told.
he is the only man I ever told it to, I think, that I kept it most strictly these eight or ten years
9 Mar 1669 Wheatley, Preface (1893) (opens in a new tab)- writing past one in the morning 16 Jan 1660
- writing up three days at once 24 Apr 1661
- writing up eight days at once 16 Oct 1665
- Worth
He totted up his money every year-end: about £300 in 1660, £500 in 1661, £650 in 1662, £800 in 1663, £1,349 in 1664, £4,400 in 1665 and over £6,200 in 1666.
I do find myself worth in money, all good, above L6,200
31 Dec 1666
How we can read his shorthand
He wrote in Thomas Shelton's shorthand. Wheatley, Preface (1893) (opens in a new tab) A Cambridge undergraduate, John Smith, spent nearly three years deciphering it (1819–22). Wheatley, Pepysiana (1899) (opens in a new tab) Lord Braybrooke printed about half of it in 1825. Henry B. Wheatley, a Victorian editor, printed nearly everything in his edition of 1893, the text used here, leaving out passages he judged unprintable, mostly about sex. Wheatley, Preface (1893) (opens in a new tab)