John Evelyn
born Oct. 31, 1620, Wotton, Surrey, Eng.
died Feb. 27, 1706, Wotton
English country gentleman, author of some 30
books on the fine arts, forestry, and religious
topics. His Diary, kept all his life, is
considered an invaluable source of information
on the social, cultural, religious, and
political life of 17th-century England.
Son of a wealthy landowner, after studying in
the Middle Temple, London, and at Balliol
College, Oxford, Evelyn decided not to join the
Royalist cause in the English Civil War for fear
of endangering his brother’s estate at Wotton,
then in parliamentary territory. In 1643,
therefore, he went abroad, first to France and
then to Rome, Venice, and Padua, returning to
Paris in 1646, where the following year he
married Mary, daughter of Sir Richard Browne,
Charles I’s diplomatic representative to France.
In 1652, during the Commonwealth, he returned to
England and acquired his father-in-law’s estate,
Sayes Court, at Deptford. In 1659 he published
two Royalist pamphlets.
At the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660,
Evelyn was well received by Charles II; he
served on a variety of commissions, including
those concerned with London street improvement
(1662), the Royal Mint (1663), and the repair of
old St. Paul’s (1666). Far more important was
the commission for sick and wounded mariners and
for prisoners of war in Charles II’s Dutch Wars
(1665–67, 1672–74), during which Evelyn exposed
himself to plague and incurred personal
expenses, reimbursement for which he was still
petitioning in 1702. At that time he received
help from Samuel Pepys (a navy official and,
likewise, a diarist), with whom he formed a
lifelong friendship.
Evelyn served on a council for colonial
affairs from 1671 to 1674. He was appointed to
the council of the Royal Society by its first
and second charters in 1662 and 1663 and
remained a lifelong member. In this capacity in
1664 he produced for the commissioners of the
navy Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest-trees, and
the Propagation of Timber, a description of the
various kinds of trees, their cultivation, and
uses. The study, with numerous modifications,
had gone through 10 editions by 1825. In 1662
Evelyn produced Sculptura, a small book on
engraving and etching, in which he announced a
new process, the mezzotint.
About 1670 Evelyn formed a paternal affection
for Margaret Blagge, a maid of honour at court,
who later secretly married Sidney Godolphin,
future lord high treasurer. She died after
giving birth to a child in 1678; Evelyn’s Life
of Mrs. Godolphin (1847; ed. H. Sampson, 1939),
is one of the most moving of 17th-century
biographies.
In 1685, a few months after James II’s
accession, Evelyn was appointed one of three
commissioners for the privy seal, an office he
held for 15 months. Evelyn’s last important
book, Numismata, was published in 1697.
His Diary, begun when he was 11 years old and
first published in 1818 (ed. E.S. de Beer, 6
vol., 1955), was written for himself alone but
with relatively little about himself in it. It
ranges from bald memoranda to elaborate set
pieces. With its descriptions of places and
events, characters of contemporaries, and many
reports of sermons, it bears witness to more
than 50 years of English life and, as such, is
of great historical value.
