A Diarist and His Passion for Silver

On December 31 of the year 1666, Samuel Pepys recorded thus in his diary.
“Thus ends this year of publick wonder and mischief to this nation, and, therefore, generally wished by all people to have an end. Myself and family well, having four mayds and one clerk, Tom, in my house, and my brother, now with me.

“Our healths all well, only my eyes with overworking them are sore as candlelight comes to them, and not else; publick matters in a most sad condition; seamen discouraged for want of pay, and are become not to be governed: nor, as matters are now, can any fleete go out next year.

“Our enemies, French and Dutch, great, and grow more by our poverty. The Parliament backward in raising, because jealous of the spending of the money; the City less and less likely to be built again, everybody settling elsewhere, and nobody encouraged to trade.

“A sad, vicious, negligent Court, and all sober men there fearful of the ruin of the whole kingdom this next year; from which, good God deliver us!”

Pepys, in his characteristic style and in the lingo common those days had summed up the Great Fire of London, which destroyed most of the city; commercial rivalry leading to ongoing sea battles against the Dutch and the French; seamen refusing to serve because of low pay; and the sentiments reminiscent of the previous year’s Great Plague in this entry.

Truthful, Unembellished and Direct!

One wonders how many of us, and I am afraid this many could be a multitude, felt the same about the year just as it were enduring the last few hours of its existence.

On the New Year’s Day of 1660, Pepys, who was then 27 years old, started to write a diary, a personal “Journall” and chronicle of London social life and current affairs, which he continued for nine years until apprehensions of an impending blindness forced him to abandon this daily chore.

Perhaps the best account of the inferno that the City of London in September,1666 turned into, is best described in his diaries. ‘Lord! what sad sight it was by moone- light to see, the whole City almost on fire, that you might see it plain at Woolwich, as if you were by it.’- he wrote.

In the wee hours of 2 September 1666, a devastating fire swept through London, destroying 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, The Royal Exchange, Guildhall and St. Paul’s Cathedral. The fire raged for four days, 80% of the London’s buildings were claimed by the flames.
The cost of the fire was estimated to be £10 million at a time when London’s annual income was only £12,000.

But for his industrious and abiding passion, understanding the horrific and devastating fire of London would have been a venture of conjecture and surmise. ‘Medieval London is now all in dust’, he recorded. His diaries, well preserved, give a first hand, authentic and elaborate account of the fire.

Born in 1633, in a modest family but providenced to get shelter and a living quarter in London by his cousin Admiral Edward Montagu, later to become the 1st Earl of Sandwich, his life began as a general handyman in Navy. But soon his cousin used his influence to get him a new post – Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board. The board was responsible for the building and repair of ships and the management of the dockyards. His fortunes took a remarkable turn from thereon. Pepys rose to become Secretary of the Admiralty, a Member of Parliament and President of the Royal Society.

Pepys began his life precariously. Financially insecure, he constantly worried about money. When he assessed his personal wealth at the beginning of his Diary, he had an estate worth just £25 (about £1,115 today) and was “much troubled with thoughts how to get money” to pay off his debts. He was spending more than he earned and decided “to look about me to get something more than just my salary, or else I may resolve to die a beggar.” Since every penny counted, he made a point of keeping just three pence in his pocket while out drinking with friends, lest he be tempted to spend more.

However, Pepys’ finances improved with a shower of bribes and gratuities for commissions, contracts and services rendered in his work for the Navy, and within a couple of years he was worth £1,000 (£45,000 today). At the end of the Diary period Pepys was rich, with a salary in excess of £500, a ‘mighty handsome’ home, a painted and gilded coach, and £10,000 in savings.”

And with affluence came expensive habits and a proclivity to display! Pepys had a passion for silver and would serve his dinner guests on silver plates rather than pewter. He did buy some of his silver collection himself, but often it came in the very welcome form of a gift or perquisite of office.

In July 1664, for instance, he received a fine leather case with a pair of silver-gilt flagons, the gift of Sir Dennis Gauden, Victualler of the Navy. Pepys wrote: “[They] are endeed so noble that I hardly can think they are yet mine.”

But he also took pride in displaying his silver. In April 1667 Pepys wrote: “I home and there find all things in good readiness for a good dinner.”

“We had, with my wife and I, twelve at table; and a very good and pleasant company, and a most neat and excellent, but dear dinner; but Lord, to see with what envy they looked upon all my fine plate was pleasant, for I made the best show I could.”

The pride that Pepys took in his silverware collection provided the only upbeat note in his diary entry for December 31, 1666. It ended: “One thing I reckon remarkable in my owne condition is that I am come to abound in good plate, so as at all entertainments to be served wholly with silver plates, having two dozen and a half.”.

Much mellowed by 1703, he died at the home of a London friend. He was 70 then.