, 1648, in the fashionable deshabillé (semi-dressed) , 1641 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 displayed at the
Hunterian Museum in London. 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. In 1647 Evelyn married
Mary Browne, daughter of
Sir Richard Browne, the English ambassador in Paris. During the next few years he travelled back and forth between France and England, corresponding with Browne in the royalist interest, including a meeting with
Charles I in 1647. During the
Commonwealth of England period, Evelyn desired to maintain using the
Church of England's
Anglican practices. Among these was worship according to the
Book of Common Prayer. Though prayer book had been outlawed and replaced by the
Directory for Public Worship, Evelyn was able to find and worship at prayer book services, including in London. At one such service–held on
Christmas Day, 1657–Evelyn reported that
Parliamentarians "held their muskets against us as we came up to receive the
Sacred Elements". Evelyn would also recount regular usage of the prayer book's offices and its
calendar with his family inside their home. In 1651 he became convinced that the royalist cause was hopeless, and decided to return to England. The following year, the couple settled in
Deptford (present-day south-east London). Their house,
Sayes Court (adjacent to the
naval dockyard), was purchased by Evelyn from his father-in-law in 1653; Evelyn soon began to transform the gardens. In 1671, he encountered master wood-worker
Grinling Gibbons (who was renting a cottage on the Sayes Court estate) and introduced him to Sir
Christopher Wren. There is now an
electoral ward called Evelyn in
Deptford, London Borough of Lewisham. He remained a royalist, had refused employment from the government of the Commonwealth, and had maintained a cipher correspondence with
Charles II; in 1659 he published an
Apology for the Royal Party.
After the Restoration It was after the
Restoration that Evelyn's career really took off, and he enjoyed unbroken court favour until his death. He never held any important political office, although he filled many useful and minor posts. In 1660, he was a member of the group that founded the
Royal Society. The following year, he wrote the
Fumifugium (or
The Inconveniencie of the Aer and Smoak of London Dissipated), a pamphlet on the growing air pollution problem in London. He was commissioner for improving the streets and buildings of London, for examining into the affairs of charitable foundations, commissioner of the
Royal Mint, and of foreign plantations. During the
Second Anglo-Dutch War, beginning 28 October 1664, Evelyn served as one of four commissioners on the
Sick and Hurt Board (others included
Sir William D'Oyly and
Sir Thomas Clifford), staying at his post during the
Great Plague in 1665. He found it impossible to secure sufficient money for the proper discharge of his functions, and in 1688 he was still petitioning for payment of his accounts in this business. He briefly acted as one of the commissioners of the
privy seal. In 1695 he was entrusted with the office of treasurer of
Greenwich hospital for retired sailors, and laid the first stone of the new building on 30 June 1696. He was known for his
knowledge of trees, and had a friend and correspondent,
Philip Dumaresq, who "devoted most of his time to gardening, fruit, and tree culture." Evelyn's treatise,
Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees (1664), was written as an encouragement to landowners to plant trees to provide timber for England's burgeoning navy. Further editions appeared in his lifetime (1670 and 1679), with the fourth edition (1706) appearing just after his death and featuring the engraving of Evelyn shown on this page (below) even though it had been made more than 50 years prior by
Robert Nanteuil in 1651 in Paris. Various other editions appeared in the 18th and 19th centuries and feature an inaccurate portrait of Evelyn made by
Francesco Bartolozzi. Evelyn had some training as a draftsman and artist, and created several
etchings. Most of his published work, produced in the form of drawings to be engraved by others, was to illustrate his own work. by Evelyn, 1640 Following the
Great Fire in 1666, closely described in
his diaries, Evelyn presented the first of several plans (
Christopher Wren produced another) for the rebuilding of London, all of which were rejected by Charles II largely due to the complexities of land ownership in the city. He took an interest in the rebuilding of
St Paul's Cathedral by Wren (with Gibbons' artistry a notable addition). Evelyn's interest in gardens even led him to design pleasure gardens, such as those at
Euston Hall. Evelyn was a prolific author and produced books on subjects as diverse as theology, numismatics, politics,
horticulture,
architecture and
vegetarianism, and he cultivated links with contemporaries across the spectrum of Stuart political and cultural life. In September 1671 he travelled with the Royal court of
Charles II to
Norwich where he called upon Sir
Thomas Browne. Like Browne and Pepys, Evelyn was a lifelong
bibliophile, and by his death his library is known to have comprised 3,859 books and 822 pamphlets, his personal manuscripts, and correspondence with noble figures among England and France. It would be called the John Evelyn Archives and placed in the British Library. Included in this would be his diaries broken down into four volumes with over half a million words. Many were uniformly bound in a French taste and bear his motto
Omnia explorate; meliora retinete ("explore everything; keep the better") from I Thessalonians 5, 21. His daughter, Mary Evelyn (1665–1685), has been acknowledged as the pseudonymous author of the book
Mundus Muliebris of 1690. ''Mundus Muliebris: or, The Ladies Dressing Room Unlock'd and Her Toilette Spread. In Burlesque. Together with the Fop-Dictionary, Compiled for the Use of the Fair Sex'' is a satirical guide in verse to Francophile fashion and terminology, and its authorship is often jointly credited to John Evelyn, who seems to have edited the work for press after his daughter's death. In 1694 Evelyn moved back to
Wotton, Surrey, as his elder brother, George, had no living sons available to inherit the estate. Evelyn inherited the estate and the family seat
Wotton House on the death of his brother in 1699. Sayes Court was made available for rent. Its most notable tenant was Russian
Tsar Peter the Great, who lived there for three months in 1698 (and did great damage to both house and grounds). The house no longer exists, but a public park of the same name can be found off Evelyn Street. Evelyn died in 1706 at his house in
Dover Street, London. Wotton House and estate were inherited by his grandson
John (1682–1763) later Sir John Evelyn, Bt. , 1707 ==Family==