John Evelyn

John Evelyn (1620–1706) was an English country gentleman, author of some 30 books on the fine arts, forestry, and religious topics[1]. 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[1]. An English writer, landowner, gardener, courtier and minor government official, he was a founding Fellow of the Royal Society[2].

Early Life and Education

John Evelyn was born on 31 October 1620 at Wotton, Surrey[1][12], son of a wealthy landowner[1]. Richard Evelyn was himself the grandson of George Evelyn, who was the first proprietor of gunpowder mills in the England of Elizabeth I[10]. The family business flourished until King Charles I converted it into a royal monopoly, essentially robbing the Evelyns of their livelihood. Fortunately, the Evelyns had already used their profits from gunpowder manufacturing to buy significant land holdings, thereby converting the family into members of the landed gentry[10].

In 1625, the nearly five year old John was sent to live with his maternal grandfather in Lewes, apparently because "the pestilence was so epidemical, that there died in London 5,000 a week"[12]. Following his mother's early death, he was raised by her relatives in Lewes, Sussex, where he received his initial education at the local grammar school until the age of seventeen in 1637. He spent his childhood in Lewes, being educated at Lewes Old Grammar School (having refused to be sent to Eton College)[11][12].

In 1637, Evelyn matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he spent approximately three years studying, though his education was interrupted and he did not obtain a degree. Concurrently, he was admitted to the Middle Temple in London, ostensibly to study law, but primarily for the social and networking opportunities it provided rather than rigorous legal training[11]. As he later acknowledged, his school was unable to give him a proper grounding; Oxford did not make good the defect. Evelyn was inquisitive and observant, but had little powers of clear and precise thought and of synthesis[14].

Key Influences and Mentors

Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, the great art-collector and patron, had been helped by Evelyn's father to buy an estate at Albury near Wotton. He received the young Evelyn kindly and fostered in him a strong interest in the visual arts; and if Evelyn's love of landscape is to be regarded as something spontaneous, it was probably in Arundel's household that he learnt to express it[14].

He was a staunch and devout Anglican and found a spiritual advisor in Jeremy Taylor[5]. In 1654, at Oxford, Evelyn had met John Wilkins, the leader of an active group of men interested in science; he thus met Christopher Wren, with whom he collaborated several times during his life-time[5].

Professional Development

The outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 contributed to his departure from Oxford around 1640, amid a period of political instability that influenced his subsequent decisions[11]. 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[1].

In 1652, during the Commonwealth, he returned to England and acquired his father-in-law's estate, Sayes Court, at Deptford[1]. 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)[1].

Royal Society and Scientific Contributions

Like a number of his contemporaries, Evelyn had a great interest in new kinds of scientific, geographic and philosophical ideas and in 1660 was a founder member of the Royal Society[3]. In 1659 he sent Robert Boyle a suggestion for the foundation of a "Mathematical College," or community for scientific study. In December 1660 Evelyn was proposed a member of the society for "the promoting of experimental philosophy," then meeting at Gresham College. Evelyn was instrumental in obtaining royal patronage and the name of "Royal Society" for the group in 1662[5].

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[1]. Evelyn was secretary of the Royal Society in 1672, and as an enthusiastic promoter of its interests was twice (in 1682 and 1691) offered the presidency[16].

Sylva and Environmental Work

As ever more ships were being built in England the requirement for suitable wood, particularly oak, had out-stripped supply during the previous centuries. Following the Restoration, the Navy Board turned to the Royal Society for an answer to the problem, which in turn commissioned Evelyn, as a horticulturalist, to prepare a paper. The result was his Sylva or Discourse of Forest Trees and the Propagation of Timber in his Majesty's Dominion, published in 1664[3]. The first books to be produced under this new permission were Robert Hooke's Micrographia and John Evelyn's Sylva, first published in 1664. Evelyn was one of the founding members of the Royal Society, a keen diarist (for which he is best known) and a scholar with a wide range of interests in the new sciences[24].

The large work contains much practical advice on the growing of trees and he implores the land-owning classes to protect woods and forests. The book was still being reprinted into the 19th century and in the 1679 edition Evelyn claims that it had led to the planting of a million oak trees[3].

Urban Planning and Environmental Reform

In 1661 Evelyn published his pamphlet Fumifugium, or the Inconveniencie of the Aer and Smoak of London Dissipated in which he criticised the way that smoke and noxious waste from industries such as lime-burning and soap-boiling were polluting London's air. "It is this horrid Smoake which obscures our Churches and makes our Palaces look old, which fouls our Clothes and corrupts the Waters" he wrote. Charles II was in agreement and commanded Evelyn to draw up a Bill to put before Parliament to prohibit such pollution but nothing immediately came of it[3].

He created a Royal Commission 'for reforming the buildings, ways, streets, and incumrances, and regulating the hackney coaches in the City of London'. It was headed by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Clarendon and the Royal Surveyor, Sir John Denham, and including Evelyn and the King's financial advisor Stephen Fox. They met regularly during 1663 and 1664[3].

Government Service

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[1]. Evelyn served on a council for colonial affairs from 1671 to 1674[1]. 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[1].

Personal Life

In 1647 he married Mary, daughter of Sir Richard Browne, Charles I's diplomatic representative to France[1]. Evelyn had married Mary Browne in Paris the previous year, when she was 13, and made her a keepsake of the painting with its sombre message, since the couple would live apart until she was older[9].

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), is one of the most moving of 17th-century biographies[1].

Evelyn made frequent references in his diary to death among his friends and his children, seven of whom never reached adulthood[8].

Friendships and Correspondence

At that time he received help from Samuel Pepys (a navy official and, likewise, a diarist), with whom he formed a lifelong friendship[1]. The earliest surviving letter dates to April 27, 1665, initiating a forty-year correspondence exceeding 70 letters, covering topics from book collecting and garden design to critiques of contemporary theater and political intrigue. Pepys addressed Evelyn as a "particular friend," reflecting mutual respect for their shared Royalist loyalties and administrative roles; Evelyn, in turn, sought Pepys's insights on naval strategy and forwarded works like his Sylva for comment. This epistolary bond persisted until Pepys's death in 1703, with Evelyn attending his funeral and preserving their letters, which highlight complementary temperaments—Pepys's pragmatism balancing Evelyn's idealism[11].

The Diary

His Diary, begun when he was 11 years old and first published in 1818, was written for himself alone but with relatively little about himself in it. It ranges from bald memoranda to elaborate set pieces[1]. 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[2].

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[2]. Three times he saw the existing English government overthrown; he observed the Dutch war from the vantage point of an official position; he remained in London during the plague of 1665; he watched the progress of the Great Fire from its start to its engulfment of the city; he noted with disapproval the licentiousness of the court of Charles II; he attended the spectacular trials of the men accused of complicity in the Popish Plot. In religion, he witnessed the shifting fortunes of the various sects; in politics, he saw the rise and the fall of a multitude of favorites. The diary, in addition to providing an inside view of these major events, reveals the ordinary conditions of existence in the seventeenth century[8].

Other Literary Works

Evelyn's last important book, Numismata, was published in 1697[1]. In 1661 he published Fumifugium, a tract offering suggestions for freeing London of smog. The following year he brought out Sculptura, an essay on mezzotint engraving[5]. His Sylva (1664), a treatise on arboriculture, was probably intended as part of an ambitious encyclopaedia of gardening, and in the same year he published A Parallel of Ancient Architecture with the Modern (a translation of Fréart de Chambray's Parallèle) in which he argued for the establishment of schools for the teaching of architecture: it also included a glossary of terms. In 1658 and 1698 he published translations of French works on gardening and garden design, and wrote a vast work on gardens and gardening, 'Elysium Britannicum', which he never published[5].

Legacy and Impact

To his observation, he brought a mind remarkable in a turbulent era for its calmness, balance, and acuity. His diary is a contribution of exceptional value to our understanding of seventeenth-century England[8]. John Evelyn's Diary was first published posthumously in 1818, but over the years became overshadowed by that of Samuel Pepys (published from 1825 onwards)[2].

Over one hundred years later, after the defeat of Napoleon, the historian Isaac D'Israeli (father of the future Prime Minister) wrote: "Inquire at the Admiralty how the fleets of Nelson have been constructed and they can tell you it was with the oak that the genius of Evelyn planted."[3]

John Evelyn died on February 27, 1706, at Wotton[1], having lived to the age of 85. Through his literary and scientific contributions, John Evelyn remains a notable figure in the history of environmental thought and the early modern scientific community[10].