Evelyn’s Plan for Rebuilding the City of London
Although Samuel Pepys is far and away the best-known diarist of the 17th century, John Evelyn is more historical. Pepys is gossipy and personal; Evelyn is more dry and circumspect and his diaries cover a longer period, from his birth in 1620 until 1704, just before his death. Friends and contemporaries, they were both members of the Royal Society established in 1660. Pepys was a dilettante and Evelyn was a genuine virtuoso, learned in the classics, the sciences, even horticulture, as his manuscripts at the British Library show. Like Christopher Wren, Evelyn drew up a plan for rebuilding the City of London after the Great Fire of 1666, but neither plan was accepted. Because of all the small owners, and the difficulty of determining “to whom all the houses and ground did in truth belong”, the City was rebuilt on its old foundations, though the streets were wider and the buildings were constructed of brick and stone, not combustible materials such as wood.