For teachers · Key stage 3 and GCSE

The Great Plague of 1665: what can a diary tell us?

Samuel Pepys stayed in London through the worst plague of the century and wrote about it as it happened. Set his diary beside the weekly bills of mortality and the Lord Mayor's orders, and pupils can test what each kind of source can and cannot tell us.

Age

Key stage 3, and GCSE: a route for each exam board.

Curriculum

KS3: “the development of Church, state and society in Britain 1509-1745”, whose examples include “religion and superstition in daily life” (examples are not statutory) (National Curriculum).

Enquiry question

What can Pepys's diary tell us about living through the plague of 1665? Or, for a bigger question: Why did Londoners live through the plague of 1665 so differently?

On this page

The year, for you · A suggested sequence · For pupils: the context · Seven extracts · About the diary as a source · The bills, week by week · The orders and what happened · Questions for key stage 3 · GCSE · Myths to avoid

Download

The weekly bills, 1665, as a spreadsheet (CSV)

Before you use this with pupils. The extracts on this page were chosen and read for the classroom. Pepys's diary as a whole is an adult text: the rest of this site, and the full entries the date links open on pepysdiary.com (with readers' notes and comments), include his sexual behaviour and violence. Please lead any use yourself, read a full entry before showing it, and don't ask pupils to search for the diary themselves. More about this

For you: the plague year in brief

Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, whose DNA has been found in a burial ground of 1665 at Liverpool Street (MOLA). It is usually described as spread by the bites of fleas carried by rats; historians and scientists still debate how much human fleas and lice spread it as well (National Archives; Dean and others, 2018). People in 1665 knew nothing of germs. They blamed bad air (National Archives), and sin: the Lord Mayor's orders call drinking in taverns the common Sin of this time, and greatest occasion of dispersing the Plague (Lord Mayor's Orders, 1665), and on 12 July Pepys records a solemn fast-day for the plague growing upon us 12 Jul 1665.

The first plague burial in the 1665 bills is in the week to 27 December 1664 (the bills). Pepys first mentions houses shut up on 30 April 1665. Deaths rose through the summer to a peak in the week of 12–19 September 1665: 8,297 burials, 7,165 of them of plague, then fell through the winter; plague continued into 1666 (the bills; Pepys).

The 52 weekly bills from 20 December 1664 to 19 December 1665 record 97,306 burials, 68,596 of them of plague (the bills). The true number was higher: about 100,000 by one estimate, between a fifth and a quarter of London (London Museum; National Archives; Public Domain Review). The bills had two kinds of gap. Some burials were never counted: Pepys feared the poor were too many to record, and Quakers and others had no bell rung (31 August). And plague was not always given as the cause: his parish clerk returned all nine burials in the parish one week, but only six of them as plague (30 August), and families might hide plague deaths to avoid being shut up, though searchers might also overstate them (Pepys; the bills; Edward Worth Library).

The Lord Mayor's orders marked infected houses with a red cross and “Lord have mercy upon us”, set watchmen at their doors, appointed women “searchers” to view the dead, ordered burials before sunrise or after sunset, and ordered dogs to be killed (Lord Mayor's Orders). The King and court left London, and Parliament met at Oxford. Many who could afford to leave did. Pepys stayed for his work at the Navy Office, sent his wife to Woolwich in July, and worked from Greenwich from late August (Pepys). England was also at war with the Dutch, and he was busy supplying the fleet.

A suggested sequence for key stage 3

1. Context first. London in 1665, what people knew and did not know about disease, and who Pepys was (for pupils: the context). Set the enquiry question.
2. The year through his eyes. Read the extracts in order. What changes between June and December, in what he sees and in how he feels?
3. Counting the dead. The bills, his figures against them, and his clerk's admission. What can numbers tell us that a diary cannot, and the other way round? Then the orders against what happened.
4. End point. A written answer to the enquiry question, using at least three extracts and the bills, and saying what the diary cannot tell us.

For pupils: the context

Seven extracts, in order

Longer passages, not single lines, so pupils can see what is around each remark. Each has a line of context from us. The spelling is Pepys's, as printed in 1893.

Wednesday 7 June 1665

His first sight of houses shut up with the plague.

This day, much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and “Lord have mercy upon us” writ there; which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that, to my remembrance, I ever saw. It put me into an ill conception of myself and my smell, so that I was forced to buy some roll-tobacco to smell to and chaw, which took away the apprehension.

ill conception of myself and my smell

a worry about his own health, and about what he could smell

roll-tobacco

tobacco twisted into a roll

chaw

chew

apprehension

fear

Wednesday 16 August 1665

In the City, at the height of summer.

But, Lord! how sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people, and very few upon the ‘Change. Jealous of every door that one sees shut up, lest it should be the plague; and about us two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up.

the ‘Change

the Royal Exchange, where merchants met to do business

jealous

suspicious, afraid

Tuesday 22 August 1665

Walking to Greenwich, where the Navy Office was about to move.

in my way seeing a coffin with a dead body therein, dead of the plague, lying in an open close belonging to Coome farme, which was carried out last night, and the parish have not appointed any body to bury it; but only set a watch there day and night, that nobody should go thither or come thence, which is a most cruel thing: this disease making us more cruel to one another than if we are doggs.

close

a field

thither … thence

there … from there

Wednesday 30 August 1665

Hadley was the clerk of his parish, St Olave's. That week's bill records nine burials in the parish, six of them of plague: the clerk returned every burial, but not every cause.

met with Hadley, our clerke, who, upon my asking how the plague goes, he told me it encreases much, and much in our parish; for, says he, there died nine this week, though I have returned but six: which is a very ill practice, and makes me think it is so in other places; and therefore the plague much greater than people take it to be.

returned

reported, for the weekly bill of mortality

ill practice

a bad, dishonest way of doing things

Thursday 31 August 1665

The whole entry for the last day of August. His second figures (7,496 and 6,102) match that week's bill for all London exactly; his first (“7,000, odd 100”) do not.

31st. Up and, after putting several things in order to my removal, to Woolwich; the plague having a great encrease this week, beyond all expectation of almost 2,000, making the general Bill 7,000, odd 100; and the plague above 6,000. I down by appointment to Greenwich, to our office, where I did some business, and there dined with our company and Sir W. Boreman, and Sir The. Biddulph, at Mr. Boreman’s, where a good venison pasty, and after a good merry dinner I to my office, and there late writing letters, and then to Woolwich by water, where pleasant with my wife and people, and after supper to bed. Thus this month ends with great sadness upon the publick, through the greatness of the plague every where through the kingdom almost. Every day sadder and sadder news of its encrease. In the City died this week 7,496 and of them 6,102 of the plague. But it is feared that the true number of the dead, this week is near 10,000; partly from the poor that cannot be taken notice of, through the greatness of the number, and partly from the Quakers and others that will not have any bell ring for them. Our fleete gone out to find the Dutch, we having about 100 sail in our fleete, and in them the Soveraigne one; so that it is a better fleete than the former with the Duke was. All our fear is that the Dutch should be got in before them; which would be a very great sorrow to the publick, and to me particularly, for my Lord Sandwich’s sake. A great deal of money being spent, and the kingdom not in a condition to spare, nor a parliament without much difficulty to meet to give more. And to that; to have it said, what hath been done by our late fleetes? As to myself I am very well, only in fear of the plague, and as much of an ague by being forced to go early and late to Woolwich, and my family to lie there continually. My late gettings have been very great to my great content, and am likely to have yet a few more profitable jobbs in a little while; for which Tangier, and Sir W. Warren I am wholly obliged to.

the general Bill

the weekly bill of mortality for all London

Quakers

a Christian group

my Lord Sandwich

the Earl of Sandwich, his patron and an admiral

ague

a fever with shivering

gettings

earnings

Tangier

an English port in North Africa, whose accounts he kept

Sir W. Warren

a timber merchant he did business with

Wednesday 20 September 1665

The worst week of the year, 12–19 September.

But, Lord! what a sad time it is to see no boats upon the River; and grass grows all up and down White Hall court, and nobody but poor wretches in the streets! And, which is worst of all, the Duke showed us the number of the plague this week, brought in the last night from the Lord Mayor; that it is encreased about 600 more than the last, which is quite contrary to all our hopes and expectations, from the coldness of the late season. For the whole general number is 8,297, and of them the plague 7,165

White Hall

Whitehall, the King's palace; the court had left London

the Duke

the Duke of Albemarle, a general

the coldness of the late season

the recent cold weather, which they had hoped would slow the plague

Sunday 31 December 1665

His verdict on the year, written on New Year's Eve.

Thus ends this year, to my great joy, in this manner. I have raised my estate from L1300 in this year to L4400. I have got myself greater interest, I think, by my diligence, and my employments encreased by that of Treasurer for Tangier, and Surveyour of the Victualls. … It is true we have gone through great melancholy because of the great plague, and I put to great charges by it, by keeping my family long at Woolwich, and myself and another part of my family, my clerks, at my charge at Greenwich, and a mayde at London; but I hope the King will give us some satisfaction for that. … I have never lived so merrily (besides that I never got so much) as I have done this plague time, by my Lord Bruncker’s and Captain Cocke’s good company

L1300 … L4400

£1,300 … £4,400: he writes L for pounds

estate

wealth

interest

influence

Surveyour of the Victualls

in charge of supplying the Navy's food

charges

costs

got

made (money)

Lord Bruncker … Captain Cocke

colleagues and friends

About the diary as a source

• Who: Samuel Pepys, a senior official of the Navy Office, well paid and getting richer that year (in his own words on 31 December). He could send his wife out of London; most Londoners could not leave.
• When: written close to the events, as a private record in shorthand. It was not published in his lifetime, and was first printed in 1825; he left it to his old college with his library, and whether he meant later readers to see it is debated.
• What it can show: what one well-off Londoner saw, heard and feared; the rumours; the weekly figures as he heard them; how attitudes changed over the year.
• What it cannot show: the experience of the poor and the sick from the inside; the cause of the disease; complete numbers. From late August he was often in Greenwich and Woolwich, not the City.
• The text: these extracts are from Henry Wheatley's edition of 1893, which left out some passages, mostly about sex. Wheatley marked no cuts in any of these days.

Ofsted criticises “simplistic judgements, such as that sources from the time are less reliable than later sources”, and asking pupils to infer from sources without enough context (Ofsted 2023). The diary is valuable for exactly what it is: one man's record, written as events happened.

The bills of mortality, week by week

Each week every parish's clerk “returned” its burials and their causes, as viewed by the searchers, and the figures were printed as the bill of mortality (Lord Mayor's Orders; Pepys). These are the 52 bills of 1665, as printed in a collection that year, and the last week of the year from Pepys's own diary (the bills).

of plague other causes

Every week

Download the weekly bills (CSV)→

Pepys's figures against the bills

Pepys copied the weekly figures into his diary. Most match the printed bills; some do not.

Questions: Why might his figures sometimes differ from the bill? What does his parish clerk's admission on 30 August suggest about the bills? Are the bills still useful, and for what?

The orders, and what happened

The Lord Mayor and aldermen printed orders for fighting the infection (Lord Mayor's Orders). Set each beside what Pepys saw.

visited

infected with the plague

Chirurgions

surgeons

fain

forced

sufficing

being long enough

Questions: Were the orders obeyed? Why might they have been hard to keep as deaths rose? What does the burial order tell you about what the authorities believed spread the disease?

Questions for key stage 3

• What did Pepys notice first, in June? How had things changed by August and September?
• Who left London, and who could not? Use 21 June: I find all the towne almost going out of towne, the coaches and waggons being all full of people going into the country 21 Jun 1665.
• Why does Pepys think the plague was making people “more cruel to one another” (22 August)?
• How far can we trust the weekly figures? Use 30 and 31 August and the table above.
• On 31 December Pepys says he has “never lived so merrily” as in the plague time. What does that tell us about him, and about how differently people lived through the same year?

People's remedies, such as tobacco and fires in the streets, made sense within what they knew. Ofsted warns against teaching that leaves pupils thinking people in the past were “stupid or cruel, or both” (Ofsted 2023). Before key stage 4 it also advises against practising GCSE-style source questions (Ofsted 2021).

GCSE: a route for each exam board

Check the current specification for your board; the lines below are quoted from the versions linked.

AQA, Britain: Health and the people

Content includes “plague”. Question 1 is on the usefulness of a source, which may be “written eg diary extracts”, judged on its “content, provenance and their contextual knowledge” (AQA). The extracts with About the diary as a source fit this directly. A practice question in that style, using the extract from 7 June: Source A: from the private diary of Samuel Pepys, an official of the Navy Office living in London, 7 June 1665. How useful is Source A to an historian studying how people tried to protect themselves from the plague? Explain your answer using Source A and your contextual knowledge.

AQA, Restoration England, 1660–1685

The only one of these specifications that names Pepys: “Crisis: Great Plague of 1665; causes and contemporary views; measures to combat; records; results; Fire of London of 1666; causes and contemporary views; results and reconstruction”, and, under Restoration culture, “Samuel Pepys” (AQA). Its questions include an interpretation question, “Explain…”, “Write an account…” and an essay on the historic environment site. This page covers views, measures and records; the Fire page covers 1666. The historic environment sites are the Dutch raid on the Medway, June 1667 (2027), St Paul's Cathedral (2028) and Drury Lane Theatre (2029) (AQA sites; AQA update). Pepys wrote about the raid and about St Paul's, and went often to the King's playhouse in Drury Lane. For the Medway, two extracts for the classroom, as the news reached him in London:

ill newes is come to Court of the Dutch breaking the Chaine at Chatham; which struck me to the heart.

No sooner up but hear the sad newes confirmed of the Royall Charles being taken by them …

Upon which newes the King and Duke of York have been below since four o’clock in the morning, to command the sinking of ships at Barking-Creeke, and other places, to stop their coming up higher: which put me into such a fear, that I presently resolved of my father’s and wife’s going into the country; and, at two hours’ warning, they did go by the coach this day, with about L1300 in gold in their night-bag.

the Chaine

a chain across the River Medway, put there to stop enemy ships

the Royall Charles

the Navy's flagship, captured and taken to the Netherlands

below

down the river

L1300

£1,300

For your own reading: The Dutch war, from his desk follows the whole war through his diary. It is written for adult readers; read it before using any of it in class.

Edexcel, Medicine in Britain, c1250–present

“Dealing with the Great Plague in London (1665): approaches to treatment and attempts to prevent its spread” (Edexcel). Pepys records what people tried: chewing tobacco (7 June), a bottle of plague-water 20 Jul 1665 (20 July), and fires burning in the street, as it is through the whole City, by the Lord Mayor’s order 6 Sep 1665 (6 September). This unit is not examined through sources; use the extracts for knowledge and examples.

OCR B, The People's Health

“Responses to outbreaks of plague including national plague orders and local reactions” (OCR B). The orders on this page are the City of London's, a local response; the national orders were issued by the King and Privy Council, and The National Archives has them (National Archives). Use the orders, and what happened for local reactions.

Eduqas, Changes in Health and Medicine

“the Great Plague of the seventeenth century”; the Norwich site for 2028–29 includes “gradual improvement in record-keeping” (Eduqas). London's records are here: the bills, week by week.

Myths to avoid

Some of these appear in published resources. Each is followed by what the evidence says.

• “The Great Fire ended the plague.” Plague deaths were already falling, the worst-hit parishes outside the walls did not burn, and people died of plague after the Fire (London Museum).
• “The worst week was 19–26 September.” It was the week of 12–19 September: 8,297 burials, 7,165 of plague (the bills; Pepys). The wrong week appears in some museum and online captions, including one of the pages we cite for the death toll.
• “The bills give the true death toll.” Some burials were never counted, and plague was not always given as the cause (Pepys; Edward Worth Library).
• “Ring a ring o' roses is about the plague.” The rhyme was first printed in English in 1881, and the plague reading appears only in the 20th century (Library of Congress).
• “40,000 dogs and 200,000 cats were killed.” The figures come from Daniel Defoe's novel A Journal of the Plague Year, published in 1722 (Defoe). The orders did say dogs were to be killed (Lord Mayor's Orders).
• “We know for certain that Eyam's villagers chose to quarantine themselves.” How Eyam's isolation came about is debated: the evidence from the time is thin, and much of the story was told in the 18th and 19th centuries (Wallis).

Sources

• The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Henry B. Wheatley (1893), Project Gutenberg
• London's Dreadful Visitation: a collection of all the bills of mortality for 1665 (EEBO-TCP A41826)
• Orders conceived and published by the Lord Major and Aldermen of the City of London, concerning the infection of the plague (1665), Project Gutenberg
• National curriculum in England: history programmes of study (DfE, 2013)
• AQA GCSE History (8145) specification
• AQA: historic environment sites
• Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9–1) History specification, issue 6
• OCR GCSE History B (Schools History Project) specification
• Eduqas GCSE History specification
• Ofsted, Rich encounters with the past: history subject report (2023)
• Ofsted, Research review series: history (2021)
• MOLA: 1665 Great Plague bacterium DNA identified for the first time
• The National Archives: the Great Plague of 1665–1666
• Dean and others, Human ectoparasites and the spread of plague in Europe during the Second Pandemic (PNAS, 2018)
• Edward Worth Library: the bills of mortality
• London Museum: myths about the Great Fire of London
• The Public Domain Review: London's Dreadful Visitation
• Library of Congress, Folklife Today: Ring around the rosie
• Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), a novel, Project Gutenberg
• Patrick Wallis, A dreadful heritage: interpreting epidemic disease at Eyam, 1666–2000 (2006)
• AQA: autumn 2026 history subject update