Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, (23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) is an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament, who is now most famous for the diary he keeps for a decade while still a relatively young man.
Although Pepys has no maritime experience, he rises by patronage, hard work and his talent for administration, to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and subsequently King James II.
His influence and reforms at the Admiralty are important in the early professionalization of the Royal Navy.
The detailed private diary Pepys keeps from 1660 until 1669 is first published in the nineteenth century, and is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period.
It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War and the Great Fire of London.
