Anne Lister - Life

Life

Anne was the eldest daughter of Jeremy Lister (1753-1836) who as a young man in 1775 served with the British 10th Regiment of Foot in the Battles of Lexington and Concord in the American war of Independence. In August 1788 he married Rebecca Battle (1770-1817) of Welton in East Riding, Yorkshire. Their first child, John was born in 1789 but died the same year. Anne Lister was born in Welton 3 April 1791. In 1793 the family moved to an estate named Skefler House at Market Weighton. At Skelfer the young Anne Lister would spend her earliest years. A second son, Samuel who would be a close friend to Anne, was born in 1793. The Listers had actually six children but only Anne and her younger sister Marian would survive to adult age.

Between 1801-1805 Anne Lister was educated at home by Reverend George Skelding, the vicar of Market Weighton, and at the age of seven she was sent to a school run by Mrs Hague's & Mrs Chettle, in Agnesgate, Ripon. On her visits to her aunt Anne and uncle James at Shibden Hall, the Misses Mellin gave her lessons. In 1805 Anne Lister was sent to the Manor House School, York. At this school Anne would meet her first love and friend, Eliza Raine (1791-1869). While educated at home Anne Lister developed an interest in the classical literature. In a survived letter to her aunt from February 3rd in 1803 young Anne Lister explains:

My library is my greatest pleasure...The Grecian History had please me much.

Her wealth allowed her some measure of freedom to live as she pleased. She inherited the family estate, Shibden Hall, in 1826, and from it drew a reasonable income (some of it from tenants). During her life, she renovated Shibden Hall quite significantly to her own design. In 1838 she added a gothic tower to the house body which would serve as her private library.

Anne Lister is described as having a "masculine appearance"; one of her lovers, Marianna Lawton (née Belcombe), was initially ashamed to be seen in public with Anne as her appearance was commented on. She dressed entirely in black and took part in many activities that were not perceived as the norm for gentlewomen, such as opening and owning a colliery. She was referred to as "Gentleman Jack" in some quarters. Lawton and Lister were lovers for several years, including a period during which Lawton was married and had her husband's permission.

Lister's subsequent affair with a wealthy heiress, Ann Walker, whom she met in 1832, was a story of local repute and her eventual "marriage" to Walker in 1834 highly unusual.

In 1830 while travelling in France, she was the first woman to ascend Mont Perdu, in the Pyrenees. In 1838, she came back to the Pyrenees with Walker and completed the first "official" ascent of the Vignemale (3,298 metres (10,820 ft)). She was known in France as Ann Lister or Lady Lister only for this accomplishment.

Anne Lister died aged 49 of a fever at Koutais (now Kutaisi, Georgia) while travelling with Ann Walker. Walker, to whom ownership of Shibden Hall passed, had Lister's body embalmed and brought back to the UK, where she is buried in the parish church, Halifax, West Yorkshire. Ann Walker died in 1854 at her childhood home, Cliff Hill in Lightcliffe.

Throughout her life, Lister had a strong faith in the Anglican Church. The Lister family had a vault at the Halifax parish church, where Anne Lister's remains are. Her tombstone was recently discovered after being covered by a floor in 1879. The current family tomb is at St Anne's Church, Southowram, where John Lister is buried; he was the first to attempt the translation of Anne Lister's diaries.