John Evelyn

John Evelyn FRS (31 October 1620 – 27 February 1706) was an English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, who is now best known as a diarist. He was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society.

John Evelyn's diary, or memoir, spanned the period of his adult life from 1640, when he was a student, to 1706, the year he died. He did not write daily at all times. The many volumes provide insight into life and events at a time before regular magazines or newspapers were published, making diaries of greater interest to modern historians than such works might have been at later periods. Evelyn's work covers art, culture and politics, including the execution of Charles I, Oliver Cromwell's rise and eventual natural death, the last Great Plague of London, and the Great Fire of London in 1666.

John Evelyn's Diary was first published posthumously in 1818, but over the years was overshadowed by that of Samuel Pepys. Pepys wrote a different kind of diary, in the same era but covering a much shorter period, 1660–1669, and in much greater depth.

Among the many subjects Evelyn wrote about, gardening was an increasing obsession, and he left a huge manuscript on the subject that was not printed until 2001. He published several translations of French gardening books, and his Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees (1664) was highly influential in its plea to landowners to plant trees, of which he believed the country to be dangerously short. Sections from his main manuscript were added to editions of this, and also published separately.

Born into a family whose wealth was largely founded on gunpowder production, John Evelyn was born in Wotton, Surrey, and grew up living with his grandparents in Lewes, Sussex. While living in Lewes, in Southover Grange, he was educated at Lewes Old Grammar School, refusing to be sent to Eton College. After this he was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and at the Middle Temple. In London, he witnessed important events such as the trials and executions of William Howard, 1st Viscount Stafford, and Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford.

In 1640 his father died, and in July 1641 he crossed to Holland. He was enrolled as a volunteer, and then encamped before Genep, on the Waal river, but his military experience was limited to six days of camp life, during which, however, he took his turn at "trailing a pike". He returned in the autumn to find England on the verge of civil war. Having briefly joined the Royalist army and arrived too late for the Royalist victory at the Battle of Brentford in 1642, he spent some time improving his brother's property at Wotton, but then went abroad to avoid further involvement in the English Civil War.

In October 1644 Evelyn visited the Roman ruins in Fréjus, Provence, before travelling on to Italy. He attended anatomy lectures in Padua in 1646 and sent the Evelyn Tables back to London. These are thought to be the oldest surviving anatomical preparations in Europe; Evelyn later gave them to the Royal Society, and they are now in the Hunterian Museum. In 1644, Evelyn visited the English College at Rome, where Catholic priests were trained for service in England. In the Veneto he renewed his acquaintance with the famous art collector Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel, and toured the art collections of Venice with Arundel's grandson and heir, later Duke of Norfolk. He acquired an ancient Egyptian stela and sent a sketch back to Rome, which was published by Father Kircher, SJ, in Kircher's Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1650), albeit without acknowledgement to Evelyn.

In Florence, he commissioned the John Evelyn Cabinet (1644–46), an elaborate ebony cabinet with pietra dura and gilt-bronze panels, which is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was in his London house at his death, then returned to Wotton, and is very likely the "ebony cabinet" in which his diaries were later found.