Every once in a while a historical figure is remembered not because of any great invention, superior artistry, military prowess, or outstanding statesmanship, but simply because they kept a diary. Samuel Pepys is one of those , and another one, born October 31 in England in 1620, is John Evelyn. Evelyn’s diary is from about the same era as Pepys chronicled, but Pepys went into far more depth. On the other hand, Evelyn’s diary (in many volumes) covers a much greater time period — more than 60 years from 1640 to 1706.
Evelyn was born into a wealthy family, although they weren’t among the super-elites of English society. In addition to his diary, he was mostly interested in gardening. He translated and published several gardening books from France, and in 1664 wrote his own book, Sylva or A Discourse of Forest-Trees, which was about how he thought England was running out of trees and everybody who owned land should plant more of them. He managed to be pretty persuasive, and he was probably correct — England had mostly been deforested at that point, and the kind of lumber they needed for ships (particularly masts) was getting pretty scarce.
Evelyn enrolled in the army and went to Holland (for some reason) but only stayed for six days. When he returned, the English Civil War had begun. He missed the big Royalist victory in 1642 because he arrived too late, and after than just concentrated on…gardening. Until he toured Europe, mostly to avoid the war.
When he visited some Roman ruins in Provence, he dug up (and looted) some tablets that are still in a museum in London. Then in Florence he commissioned a woodworker to build him a very elaborate cabinet; that’s where his diaries were found after he died. The cabinet is now in a museum too.
Although he wasn’t really a gentleman-scientist of any note, he helped found the Royal Society in about 1660. Then we wrote and distributed a famous pamphlet complaining about air pollution in London. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, Evelyn proposed a plan for rebuilding the city, but it was ignored — evidently his plan included a really over-the-top number of gardens and parks.
In 1690 he helped his daughter write a book with a rather odd title: 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. It’s a satire about French fashion and the habit of some English elites to toss French terms into their conversation at every opportunity. He also wrote a long treatise on gardening, but it wasn’t found until after he passed away — and wasn’t published until 2001. His diaries, also found posthumously, were published in the early 1800s.
And there’s one very Halloween-esque footnote to the story of John Evelyn. He was buried in the Evelyn Chapel in Wotton, England — and in 1992, somebody opened the stone tomb in the floor and stole his skull. It’s never been found.
