This Friday marks the third year of Pepys Day, a celebration of the diarist who chronicled the Great Fire of London. Former Lord Mayor Michael Mainelli explains why Londoners should care (and get involved)
Samuel Pepys is making a third comeback. Not that he ever really went away.
On Friday 4 September, at 11:00, by Temple Bar in Paternoster Square next to St Paul’s Cathedral, the City of London will celebrate its third annual Pepys Day, marking the extraordinary week in September 1666 when the Great Fire consumed much of the City – and Samuel Pepys watched, worried, recorded and occasionally fled, leaving his Parmesan behind.
What is Pepys Day?
The first Pepys Day, in 2024, attracted 225 people. Part Deux in 2025 doubled that to 500. If Dublin can have Bloomsday, celebrating one fictional day in the life of James Joyce’s Leopold Bloom, surely London can manage one day for the man who chronicled the City when it was considerably smokier, smellier and more dangerous.
Why Pepys? He lived during the turbulent but rambunctious reign of Charles II, the Restoration. His diary was as racy as the times. He was no saint at all. He was very very human, and shared his foibles with himself, and now us.
Little-known fact one: Pepys was pivotal in turning the Royal Navy into a modern organisation. He arrived at the Navy Board knowing little about ships, but brought an accountant’s eye to supplies, administration and standards. He introduced examinations for naval lieutenants, including mathematics and navigation, in 1677. Pepys converted one of the great naval powers of the age from an elite stating “I have always wanted to be a captain” to a more meritocratic “are you qualified to be a captain; how dangerous will you be to our enemies?”
Little-known fact two: Pepys was President of the Royal Society from 1684 to 1688 as it emerged from Gresham College. During his presidency Isaac Newton published the Principia Mathematica, one of the foundations of modern science. The title page carries Pepys’s name as President. So the great diarist was not merely writing about the Restoration, plague, fire, sex and song, he was running the engine room of the Scientific Revolution.
Little-known fact three: Pepys was deeply involved in the tangled business of Tangier, then an English possession. In 1683 he went to Morocco with Lord Dartmouth to oversee the demolition of the fortifications and evacuation of the garrison. They wanted to ensure that nothing left in the abandoned colony might aid the Barbary Pirates. His Tangier papers provide valuable evidence about the Navy, administration and the realities of imperial power. Pepys was therefore an administrator, reformer, politician, scientist and intelligence-minded operator as well as diarist.
Celebrating the spirit of London
Of course, then there is the Fire. Pepys gives us something historians treasure, an event unfolding at street level, in real time, through the eyes of an intelligent, connected, frightened, curious and at times self-interested Londoner. His diary records the City not as an abstraction but as a living organism of people, markets, government, rumours, destruction, building and extraordinary resilience.
Pepys Day is not just nostalgia. It is a celebration of London’s capacity to survive catastrophe, adapt and rebuild. We can see how the Great Fire changed the physical City, but Pepys helps us understand the human transformation.
This year’s programme includes a Temple Bar ceremony with Samuel Pepys himself being escorted through the City gates by the Pikemen & Musketeers of the Honourable Artillery Company, readings from Pepys and guided walks exploring his City and the Great Fire. The City of London Guides are again leading the way. You can book a 90 minute walk at lunchtime starting from 12:00 at https://www.cityoflondonguides.com/tours/pepys-day-2026, with proceeds donated to the Lady Mayor’s Appeal.
Come for the history. Walk the streets Pepys walked. Stay for the scurrilous 17th and 21st century gossip. Get a certificate afterwards if you climb to the top of the Monument’s 311 steps for a final view.
Remember, if you encounter anything alarming, do what Samuel would have done: write it down. Preferably before lunch.
Michael Mainelli was the Lord Mayor of London from 2023-2024