Person    | Male  Born 23/2/1633  Died 26/5/1703

Samuel Pepys

Diarist and Secretary of the Admiralty. Born Salisbury Court, where his father ran a tailoring business. The house backed onto St Brides church. Highly regarded administrator of the navy. Served Cromwell, King Charles II, King James II, but resigned rather than serve King William III. Pepys was on the ship commanded by Montagu that brought Charles II back from exile at the Restoration. On the governing board of Christ's Hospital with a special interest in the Royal Mathematical School

In 1659, through his patron, Montagu, he got his first job in the Navy Board and he moved into the house that came with the job, in Seething Lane (plaque) where he stayed until c.1672. He was very house-proud and enjoyed improving it. The book cases he had built there are the first-known purpose-built bookcases in England. Having survived the Great Fire of London Seething Lane was burnt down in January 1673 and Pepys lived in lodgings just around the corner in Mark Lane. In January the following year he moved to rooms above the Admiralty quarters in Derby House in Cannon Row (just north of Westminster tube station).

In 1679, on release from a brief spell in the Tower, Pepys went to stay with his trusted assistant and friend William Hewer in York Buildings, Buckingham Street (plaque) where he had his own set of rooms. In 1685 Pepys was joined there by his mistress of 14 years, Mary Skinner, who was now often given the respect normally reserved for a wife. Hewer moved out and Pepys had the Admiralty Office moved from Derby House to Buckingham Street. The houses involved were no 12 and no 14.  In 1680, rather than serve King William he resigned from the Admiralty and refused to move out of his home so the Admiralty Office was moved out instead.

Died Clapham in Will Hewer's house where Pepys had moved in 1701, together with his library. This house, demolished c. 1760, is thought to have been on the north side of the common, near what is now Victoria Road. Buried at St Olave's.

1655 married the 14-year old Elizabeth, who died in 1669.

Pepys invested in the slave trading Royal Africa Company and was a slave trade enabler through his job at the Naval Office.

We highly recommend 'Samuel Pepys: the Unequalled Self' by Claire Tomalin.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Samuel Pepys

Commemorated ati

Kipling House

The wording on the plaque could have been clearer. The first half is giving t...

Read More

Mile End mural

Murals are often rather fun puzzles so do have a go identifying what you can ...

Read More

Old Cock Tavern - Fleet Street - lost plaque

The quotation compares The Cock with Vauxhall Gardens.

Read More

Pepys and Navy Office

Site of the Navy Office in which Samuel Pepys lived and worked. Destroyed by...

Read More

Show all 14

This section lists the memorials created by the subject on this page:
Samuel Pepys

Creations i

Pepys and Harrison

Londonist gives a deliciously grim description of the process of being hung, ...

Read More

Pepys - Stew Lane

This page of Pepys' Diary is given at The Diary of Samuel Pepys with lots of ...

Read More

Other Subjects

George Eliot

George Eliot

Novelist.  Born Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire.  Pen name of Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans. Spent her first 21 years on a farm, now (2015) the Griff House Beefeater Grill restaurant on the Coventry Road...

Person, Literature, Seriously Famous

3 memorials
Thomas Park F.S.A.

Thomas Park F.S.A.

"The poetical antiquary", bibliographer and engraver. He published his own verse but mainly he edited historical and literary works. Father of John James Park.

Person, History, Literature, Museums / Libraries

1 memorial
John Walker

John Walker

Author of the Pronouncing Dictionary.  Actor then teacher. Published "Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, Rules Addressed to Citizens of Scotland, Ireland and London" in 1791. Friends with Dr. Johnson...

Person, Literature

1 memorial
Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Born as Adeline Virginia Stephen in Hyde Park Gate, London. Drowned herself in the River Ouse Rodmell, Sussex by filling pockets with stones. Virginia and Leonard Woolf lived at no. 52 Tavistock S...

Person, Literature, Seriously Famous

9 memorials
Henry Williamson

Henry Williamson

Writer. Born at 66 Braxfield Road, Brockley. His best known work, 'Tarka the Otter' was published in 1927. He attended the Nuremberg rally in Berlin and saw Adolf Hitler as a source of good for his...

Person, Literature, Germany

1 memorial

Previously viewed

J R Ackerley

J R Ackerley

Writer and literary editor. Born as Joe Randolph Ackerley at 4 Warmington Road, Herne Hill. He was appointed as private secretary to the Maharajah of Chhokrapur which served as a basis for his 'Hin...

Person, Literature, India

1 memorial
Charles Lamb - 89 Chase Side

Charles Lamb - 89 Chase Side

EN2, Chase Side, 85 and 89

Number 89 is the house with the white porch on the left of the photograph, and number 85 is the white house with the green door. Hidden ...

1 subject commemorated
Sir William Addison

Sir William Addison

Historian and author. Born William Wilkinson Addison at Mitton, Lancashire. He moved to Buckhurst Hill on the edge of Epping Forest, Essex, and began a lifelong association with the area, which res...

Person, Law, Literature

1 memorial
Henry Walter Fincham, F.S.A.

Henry Walter Fincham, F.S.A.

Co-church warden of St James & St John, Clerkenwell in 1890. Henry Walter Fincham was born on 27 February 1859, the youngest of the four children of Henry Fincham (1812-1887) and Mary Ann Finc...

Person, History, Politics & Administration

2 memorials