Anne Lister: A Woman Who Defied Convention

There are a lot of articles about trail-blazing and internationally influential women. I, however, have written a piece about a woman closer to home. I also chose her because she loved reading and was a travel writer and diarist.

Born on 3rd April 1791 in Halifax, Great Britain, Anne Lister was a landowner in her own right, diarist, mountaineer, and traveller. Upon her death in 1840, Anne left behind twenty-six volumes, 7,722 pages, and approximately five million words in her diaries, not including her travel notes.

Anne Lister’s Diaries

Lister’s diaries are a fantastic social record that chronicles her daily life, personal interests, social events, politics, and social commentary. They also provide a valuable record of the transformation of Yorkshire during the Industrial Revolution, including national and international events and influences.

One-sixth of Lister’s diary entries were written in a code that combined algebra and Ancient Greek. The code was deciphered in the 1980s, and these entries provided the intimate details of her romantic and sexual relationships with women.

The First Modern Lesbian

Lister has been labelled as the “first modern lesbian” because her diaries reveal her uncompromising self-awareness and lesbian lifestyle. While Lister’s use of code in her diaries suggests she saw a need to hide her sexual orientation from wider society, she still defied conventions and lived openly with her lovers. Lister also took part in a “marriage ceremony” with her lover, Ann Walker, a local heiress who lived with Lister on her estate, Shibden Hall in Halifax, from 1834. Locals, however, were aware of her sexuality. Lister had to endure much harassment and was given the title “Gentleman Jack”.

Traveller

Lister travelled extensively throughout Europe and was an avid walker and climber. She was one of the first to ascend Mount Perdu, in the Pyrenees, in 1830, and then Mount Vignemale, in France, in 1838.

In 1839, Lister and Walker embarked on a two-year expedition across Europe, but Lister tragically died on 22nd September 1840 in Georgia, which was then part of the Russian Empire. Walker accompanied Lister’s body back to Halifax, where she now rests in Halifax Minster. Lister left everything, including Shibden Hall and its estate, to Walker, but Walker’s family had her forcibly removed and placed in an asylum.

In the opening of this article, I mentioned I chose Lister because she was from West Yorkshire, loved reading and was a writer. I also chose her because she was a woman who defied convention and just got on with living the life she wanted, regardless of harassment and societal expectations. Lister was self-aware and accepted who she was without apology. She knew what she wanted and set out to achieve it.

Is that not what we all want regardless of gender? We want to live life without barriers to prevent us from achieving our goals.

Lister’s diaries are currently in the collection of the West Yorkshire Archive Service in Calderdale. They also featured her in the Women Travellers exhibition at the Bankfield Museum in Halifax.