IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0074 CLC/489
Held at: London Metropolitan Archives
Title: PEPYS FAMILY
Date(s): 1641/2-1698
Level of description: Collection
Extent: 10 production units.
Name of creator(s): Pepys | Samuel | 1633-1703 | naval official and diarist
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Samuel Pepys was born in 1633 in London. His father was a tailor, but had good family connections including a landed uncle in Huntingdonshire and an aunt with an advantageous marriage. Pepys attended Saint Paul's School and Cambridge, after which he became the private secretary of his cousin Edward Mountagu (later the Earl of Sandwich). In 1659 he began his 30 years of service to the Navy when Mountagu was made general at sea. In 1660 Pepys was given a job at the Navy Board, and was part of the group sent to bring Charles II back to England to begin his reign. In the same year he began his diary, which has made him famous and which provides an insight into the life and customs of his day, as well as giving accounts of major events such as the plague and the Great Fire of London in 1666. Pepys ended the diary in 1669, concerned that his eyesight was failing. His career continued to be successful, and he became Secretary to the Admiralty Commission in 1672. He died in 1703 and was buried at Saint Olave, Hart Street.
Information from: C ] S Knighton, Pepys, Samuel (1633-1703), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/21906, accessed 16 June 2011].
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Letters and papers relating chiefly to Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) in his work at the Navy Office 1660-73 and at the Admiralty 1673-9 and 1684-9, and also to the family of Richard Pepys (c 1589-1659), first cousin to the diarist's father, 1642-1689.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
Records arranged by MS number, assigned during cataloguing at the Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section.
Conditions governing access:
Access only to holders of a History Card. Please see staff if you require a card.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copyright to this collection rests with the City of London.
Finding aids:
Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
The manuscripts, which were assembled from a number of sources over many years, were presented to Guildhall Library in 1987 by Lieutenant Colonel C.D L. Pepys, an eighth generation descendant of Richard Pepys. They were catalogued in the same year by a member of Guildhall Library staff. The Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section merged with the London Metropolitan Archives in 2009.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Related material:
See the National Register of Archives (available on the website of The National Archives) for a full listing of archive repositories which hold material relating to Samuel Pepys.
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Archivist's note:
Date(s) of descriptions: Records prepared May to September 2011.