Anne Lister (1791-1840) was born in Halifax Yorks and spent her childhood in her parents’ home. And she was a regular visitor to her aunt’s grand family estate Shibden Hall.
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Portrait of Anne Lister in her customary dark clothes,
by Joshua Horner c1830, Shibden Hall
by Joshua Horner c1830, Shibden Hall
Lister was not raised to be in business, but to be a wife. When she was 7 she was sent to school in Ripon. In a society that taught girls to be ladylike, Lister emerged as a fiercely intelligent and strong-willed student. Next she was educated at home by the local vicar in 1801, then she was at boarding school. This was where Lister first fell in love with Eliza Raine, the illegitimate daughter of a deceased East India Co surgeon who’d later inherit a fortune. Raine dreamed of making a life with Lister when school ended, but that failed. Lister become closer to other girls at school and after just 2 years, she was expelled. It didn’t matter; as an adult Lister was passionate about travel, making many trips abroad.
Shibden Hall was W. Yorkshire manor house near Halifax, built c1420. Later it was bought by the wealthy Savile family, then the Waterhouse family. When Waterhouse sold Shibden in 1612, it was bought by Lister cousins. In 1614 Samuel Lister lived there, a tailor who, by careful marriages, brought Shibden into Lister ownership.
Lister met her land-owning neighbour Ann Walker when she moved to Shibden Hall in 1815. But it was years before the two women fell in love and exchanged vows in church.
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Lister had to set a business education programme for herself in a male-dominated society; that way she could manage the estate of c400 acres, with revenues from agricultural rents. In addition to income from agricultural tenancy, Lister's finances came from buying and selling property, shares in the canal and railway industries, mining and stone quarries. And she took control of her business interests herself, deciding on the investments with or without professional advice. Additionally Ann Walker’s fortune was very well used by Lister. What an amazing business mind!!
After her aunt's and father's death, Lister had full control of Shibden in 1836 and used her business income to recreate the estate. With architect John Harper, her changes included: terracing of the south lawn, opening of the low ceiling house, Norman tower, ornamental lake and carriage drive to the gatehouse. Other planned changes stopped.
Lister’s early diary habit grew into an obsession, calling the diaries her private memorial which helped to comfort her. She wrote her journals in volumes from 1817, and as time passed, she expanded on the details she wrote in her tiny handwriting. She jotted down notes on a slate and wrote up her journal later that day. She used her own code to record her most private feelings, and accounts of the relationships with the women in her life. In any case, she was careful about who heard of the diaries.
The two Annes went on their final trip together in 1839, via France, Denmark, Sweden to Russia. Her last diary entry was for Aug 1840 when she was in Georgia’s Caucasus Mountains. 6 weeks later she died in Sept 1840 at 49, from a fever. Her wife Ann Walker brought the body back from Georgia, together with at least some of the diaries. From a 1850 list of the Shibden papers, it was clear that there was a bundle listed as Diaries and Journals of Mrs Lister, kept behind the panels at Shibden. Ann Walker inherited Shibden.
Following Walker’s death in 1854, John Lister, Anne Lister’s distant relative from Wales moved to Shibden with his family.
after Anne Lister’s death
In 1885 all male homosexual acts became illegal and public opinion was very hostile, as seen in the 1895 trials of Oscar Wilde. The diaries went back into storage and when John Lister died in 1933, his knowledge of the coded diaries was lost. Halifax Borough now became owners of Shibden, and the Borough Librarian spent 2 years cataloguing John Lister’s books and letters. Tracking missing diary volumes, they contacted antiquarian Arthur Burrell who found diary volumes and cracked Lister’s code.
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Shibden Hall was W. Yorkshire manor house near Halifax, built c1420. Later it was bought by the wealthy Savile family, then the Waterhouse family. When Waterhouse sold Shibden in 1612, it was bought by Lister cousins. In 1614 Samuel Lister lived there, a tailor who, by careful marriages, brought Shibden into Lister ownership.
Lister met her land-owning neighbour Ann Walker when she moved to Shibden Hall in 1815. But it was years before the two women fell in love and exchanged vows in church.
Holy Trinity Church, York where the couple took communion
to seal their union, 1834, Wiki
Lister had to set a business education programme for herself in a male-dominated society; that way she could manage the estate of c400 acres, with revenues from agricultural rents. In addition to income from agricultural tenancy, Lister's finances came from buying and selling property, shares in the canal and railway industries, mining and stone quarries. And she took control of her business interests herself, deciding on the investments with or without professional advice. Additionally Ann Walker’s fortune was very well used by Lister. What an amazing business mind!!
After her aunt's and father's death, Lister had full control of Shibden in 1836 and used her business income to recreate the estate. With architect John Harper, her changes included: terracing of the south lawn, opening of the low ceiling house, Norman tower, ornamental lake and carriage drive to the gatehouse. Other planned changes stopped.
Lister’s early diary habit grew into an obsession, calling the diaries her private memorial which helped to comfort her. She wrote her journals in volumes from 1817, and as time passed, she expanded on the details she wrote in her tiny handwriting. She jotted down notes on a slate and wrote up her journal later that day. She used her own code to record her most private feelings, and accounts of the relationships with the women in her life. In any case, she was careful about who heard of the diaries.
The two Annes went on their final trip together in 1839, via France, Denmark, Sweden to Russia. Her last diary entry was for Aug 1840 when she was in Georgia’s Caucasus Mountains. 6 weeks later she died in Sept 1840 at 49, from a fever. Her wife Ann Walker brought the body back from Georgia, together with at least some of the diaries. From a 1850 list of the Shibden papers, it was clear that there was a bundle listed as Diaries and Journals of Mrs Lister, kept behind the panels at Shibden. Ann Walker inherited Shibden.
Following Walker’s death in 1854, John Lister, Anne Lister’s distant relative from Wales moved to Shibden with his family.
after Anne Lister’s death
In 1885 all male homosexual acts became illegal and public opinion was very hostile, as seen in the 1895 trials of Oscar Wilde. The diaries went back into storage and when John Lister died in 1933, his knowledge of the coded diaries was lost. Halifax Borough now became owners of Shibden, and the Borough Librarian spent 2 years cataloguing John Lister’s books and letters. Tracking missing diary volumes, they contacted antiquarian Arthur Burrell who found diary volumes and cracked Lister’s code.
Shibden Hall, Calderdale Museums
Anne Lister lived there from 1815
Anne Lister lived there from 1815
In 1984 The Guardian wrote The 2 Million Word Enigma, opening up the diaries to a much wider audience. Helena Whitbread came into the West Yorkshire Archive Service Calderdale, became intrigued by the diaries and produced two key publications in 1988 and 1992. Muriel Green’s Miss Lister of Shibden Hall (1992) was published concentrating on letters. They were inscribed in the UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register, making a substantial cultural significance covering all aspects of her life: as landowner, business woman, traveller and gay woman.
See Gentleman Jack, Anne’s life in Halifax, BBC/HBO TV.
See Gentleman Jack, Anne’s life in Halifax, BBC/HBO TV.
See the Shibden Hall Exhibition (Mar-Ap 2024).
Or read Anne Lister’s Diaries, by Manchester U.P, 2023
Or read Anne Lister’s Diaries, by Manchester U.P, 2023