John Evelyn, (born Oct. 31, 1620, Wotton, Surrey, Eng.—died Feb. 27, 1706, Wotton), English country gentleman, author of some 30 books on the fine arts, forestry, and religious topics. His Diary, kept all his life, is considered an invaluable source of information on the social, cultural, religious, and political life of 17th-century England.
Son of a wealthy landowner, after studying in the Middle Temple, London, and at Balliol College, Oxford, Evelyn decided not to join the Royalist cause in the English Civil War for fear of endangering his brother’s estate at Wotton, then in parliamentary territory. In 1643, therefore, he went abroad, first to France and then to Rome, Venice, and Padua, returning to Paris in 1646, where the following year he married Mary, daughter of Sir Richard Browne, Charles I’s diplomatic representative to France. In 1652, during the Commonwealth, he returned to England and acquired his father-in-law’s estate, Sayes Court, at Deptford. In 1659 he published two Royalist pamphlets.
At the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Evelyn was well received by Charles II; he served on a variety of commissions, including those concerned with London street improvement (1662), the Royal Mint (1663), and the repair of old St. Paul’s (1666). Far more important was the commission for sick and wounded mariners and for prisoners of war in Charles II’s Dutch Wars (1665–67, 1672–74), during which Evelyn exposed himself to plague and incurred personal expenses, reimbursement for which he was still petitioning in 1702. At that time he received help from Samuel Pepys (a navy official and, likewise, a diarist), with whom he formed a lifelong friendship.
Evelyn served on a council for colonial affairs from 1671 to 1674. He was appointed to the council of the Royal Society by its first and second charters in 1662 and 1663 and remained a lifelong member. In this capacity in 1664 he produced for the commissioners of the navy Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest-trees, and the Propagation of Timber, a description of the various kinds of trees, their cultivation, and uses. The study, with numerous modifications, had gone through 10 editions by 1825. In 1662 Evelyn produced Sculptura, a small book on engraving and etching, in which he announced a new process, the mezzotint.
About 1670 Evelyn formed a paternal affection for Margaret Blagge, a maid of honour at court, who later secretly married Sidney Godolphin, future lord high treasurer. She died after giving birth to a child in 1678; Evelyn’s Life of Mrs. Godolphin (1847; ed. H. Sampson, 1939), is one of the most moving of 17th-century biographies.
In 1685, a few months after James II’s accession, Evelyn was appointed one of three commissioners for the privy seal, an office he held for 15 months. Evelyn’s last important book, Numismata, was published in 1697.
His Diary, begun when he was 11 years old and first published in 1818), was written for himself alone but with relatively little about himself in it. It ranges from bald memoranda to elaborate set pieces. With its descriptions of places and events, characters of contemporaries, and many reports of sermons, it bears witness to more than 50 years of English life and, as such, is of great historical value.
House. 1572 for William Newton, Steward to the Earl of Dorset.
Dressed Caen stone, removed from the Priory, with coped parapets to roof of Horsham slabs on lower slabs and plain tiles on upper slopes. Various irregular red brick stacks and a pair of C19 gabled dormers with decorative bargeboards. U-plan with wing to rear at left. West front: 2 storeys and attics. Projecting wings to left and right with central recess, filled on ground floor. Fenestration slightly irregular of 2 - 3 - 1 rhythm. Ovolo-moulded cross-windows on ground-floor of wings, with 2-light mullioned windows above, all with hood-mouldings. Small 2-light window with chamfered mullion in garret with hoodmould to right. 2-light window in garret to left, similar to first-floor windows but smaller. 2-light ovolo-moulded mullioned windows in central recess, flanking central window of 3 lights with shield over central light and reveal and hood- mould, continuous over all 3 first floor windows in recess, stepped over. Small central triangular gablet with finial on parapet. 6-light C19 transom and mullions windows with rounded tracery to upper lights flanking rounded Tudor-arched entrance with boarded and ribbed door, moulded surround, florally- decorated spandrela and uncarved shield with light attached over. Continuous hoodmould over all three openings. All windows with leaded casements in iron frames. Small pedimented aedicule on first floor of re-entrant angle of left wing containing shield of lion rampant.
North front: Stack on ridge to left of brick with arched panelled sides, over sailing cornice and with C19 bell in gabled wooden bell-cote. Main features of projecting wing to left of centre and two tall stone chimney-breasts to right. Two gabled semi-dormers flanking lefthand stack, both with gable-parapets and kneelers. Two ovolo- moulded cross windows flanking stack with hoodmould continued around stack and over single-light window in stack. Projecting wing with regular fenestration of 5-light ovolo-moulded windows on ground and first floors and 2-light window in garret and two windows flanking at half-levels between ground and first floors and first and second floors, those above of 2 lights those below single. All windows cast-iron casements with leaded lights and hoodmoulds. East front L-plan with projecting canted staircase wing and further gabled wing in re-entrant angle. 2 storeys with attics to right. Irregular fenestration.
Interior: Hall - panelled ceiling with moulded beams on shield corbels. Marble fire-surround with Neo-Jacobean overmantel. Dining room - fire surround with stone-moulded Tudor arch, inscribed 'WN 1572' in spandrels and overmantel marked 'Ye Old/Welsh/Parliament/House/Dolgelly'.
Staircase - C19 Neo-Jacobean staircase with twisted baluster and early C18 hanging lantern with foliage decoration.
John Evelyn, the diarist, lived in Southover Grange as a boy during the early seventeenth century. It was later used as the original of Mockbeggar's Hall in Ovingdean Grange by William Harrison Ainsworth, (1805-82).