Lister family of Shibden Hall
The following source list was originally available only on paper in one of the West Yorkshire Archive Service offices. It may have been compiled many years ago and could be out of date. It was designed to act as a signpost to records of interest on a particular historical subject, but may relate only to one West Yorkshire district, or be an incomplete list of sources available. Please feel free to add or update with any additional information. |
Early history
The first person associated with Shibden was a cloth merchant, William Otes, in the late 14th century. His grandson inherited and had a daughter Joan and late in life a son, Gilbert. There was a contest between them as to which would inherit Shibden, and finally the court awarded a lifetime interest to Joan, married into the powerful Savile of Elland family through her husband, Robert Savile. Their daughter, Joan, married Robert Waterhouse, part of another important local family and in 1522 they inherited Shibden. Their son, John purchased the Manor of Halifax-cum-Heptonstall and became Lord of the Manor. Shibden remained in the Waterhouse family until 1612 when Edward Waterhouse sold it to Widow Crowther on behalf of her nephew John Hemingway. His uncle, Samuel Lister (1570-1632), a cloth merchant was the tenant at Shibden and the guardian of John Hemingway (who was to die young) and his 4 sisters after the death of their aunt and father. Samuel Lister had 5 children and in 1619 his eldest son, Thomas (1599-1677) married his cousin, Sybil Hemingway, followed in 1625 by another son, John, marrying Phoebe Hemingway. The girls brought to their marriages the ownership of Shibden Hall. Later Lister owners included James Lister (1673-1729), an apothecary with over 600 clients and the Reverend John Lister (1703-1759), Headmaster of Bury Grammar School (see SH:7/RL). The Lister papers also contain correspondence and other records relating to General Sir William Fawcett (1727-1804), nephew of the Reverend John Lister (see SH:7/FAW). James Lister (1748-1826) lived at Shibden with his sister, Ann. His younger brother, Jeremy (1752-1836) saw active service in the American War of Independence (see SH:7/JL) and was the father of Anne Lister (1791-1840) by his wife Rebecca Battle.
Anne Lister
Anne Lister was born on 3 April 1791 in Halifax. She lived at Market Weighton in the East Riding for most of her childhood, but paid frequent visits to Shibden. She attended the Manor School in York from the age of 14 and in 1815, she went to live permanently with her uncle and aunt at Shibden Hall, and from 1826 she was the co-owner and took over the management of the estate. From the age of 15, Anne began to keep a diary, and this habit grew into what could be called an obsession in adulthood. The diaries consist of 27 volumes, 6600 pages or almost 4 million words. These diaries, together with over a 1000 letters, are held in the Calderdale Office of the West Yorkshire Archive Service (see SH:7/ML), and together they are a wealth of information about politics, business, religion, education, science, travel, local and national events, medicine and health. Anne also devised an esoteric code in order to conceal her unorthodox sexuality and to record in detail her diverse affairs with women. In 1836 when she became the sole owner, she employed the architect John Harper of York to draw up extravagant improvement plans for Shibden, beyond Anne's budget. For 4 years Shibden was given over to builders. Anne, however, had always been a great traveller and in June 1839 she persuaded her partner, Ann Walker, to undertake her most adventurous arduous journey - a trip through Russia and over the Caucasian mountains into Persia. She died on the 22 September 1840 in Georgia having contracted a fatal fever. Her body was brought back to Halifax on a journey that lasted 7 months, to be buried in Halifax Parish Church.
Diaries of Anne Lister - Prestigious UNESCO Award for West Yorkshire Archive Service
The Diaries of Anne Lister held by West Yorkshire Archive Service have received a prestigious award from UNESCO.
The award for ‘Best of UK Heritage’ recognises the outstanding but lesser-known heritage of the UK.
This unique set of diaries (1806-1840) which run to four million words were written by Anne Lister of Shibden Hall, Halifax, West Yorkshire (1791-1840) a remarkable landowner, business woman, intrepid traveller, mountaineer and lesbian.
In comparison, Samuel Pepys’ diaries comprise just 1.25 million words. The diaries, whose survival has been a miracle, intrigue and inspire people all over the world, primarily in the field of United Kingdom Gender Studies and Women’s History.
Despite needing to keep her orientation secret from society at large, Anne defied the conventions of her times by living with and marrying her female lover. She kept a fascinating and painfully honest account of her life and loves, a 1/6th of the diaries written in a code of her own devising which she felt confident would never be broken! Sarah Waters, the award-winning author comments, “Engaging, revealing, at times simply astonishing… Anne Lister’s diaries are an indispensable read for anyone interested in the history of gender, sexuality, and the intimate lives of women”.
Maxine Peake who starred in the 2010 BBC drama based on the diaries commented, "You look at how abundant the diaries were, and when you think of all the dramas we have and the fact everyone's fascinated with Jane Austen, you wonder why these diaries are not more heard of. Aside from her sexuality, they are absolutely such detailed documents of that period of time”.
These are the second inscriptions to the UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register, an online catalogue created to help promote the UK’s documentary heritage across the UK and the world. The register is part of a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) programme to support and raise awareness of archives. The Anne Lister Diaries are one of 20 collections to have received the award this year from across the whole of the UK.
The UK Register is available on the UNESCO website.
Details of Anne Lister’s diaries can be found on the WYAS online catalogue.
Later history
Ann Walker inherited a lifetime interest in Shibden, but in 1843 her family had her forcibly removed to an asylum in York. For the next 12 years Shibden was home to various families. Anne Lister's library was sold but the family papers were stacked away. When Ann Walker died in 1855, Shibden was inherited by John Lister (1802-1867), a doctor of Swansea (see SH:7/DRL), and descendent of Thomas Lister of Virginia (1708-1740). He married Louisa Anne Grant and had 3 children - John (1847-1933), the last Lister owner of Shibden; Charles, a botanist who died in Bolivia (1848-1889) and Anne (1852-1929). John Lister (see SH:7/JN-JN/B) stood as a Liberal Councillor in Yorkshire and was a founder member and treasurer of the Independent Labour Party. In 1893, he stood as the first Labour candidate for Halifax in the parliamentary by-election, polling over 3000 votes. He was a keen historian, founder President of the Halifax Antiquarian Society and cracked the code of Anne Lister's journals. He was a founder of the Industrial School for errant children (SH:7/JN/B/46-47, etc), and was a governor of Hipperholme Grammar School for 47 years (SH:7/JN/B/48). He converted to Catholicism midway through life and there are many letters relating to this amongst his papers (SH:7/JN). By 1923, John was in a desperate financial position and the bank called in his mortgages. Most of his money had been spent in charitable works and in the upkeep of Shibden. Mr A S McCrea, Lister's friend and a Halifax Councillor, came to his rescue by purchasing 90 acres of parkland, which he presented to the people of Halifax as a public park. The Prince of Wales opened this in 1926. McCrea also bought the reversion of Shibden Hall, which allowed John and his sister to live out their lives there. Anne died in 1929 and John in 1933. Shibden Hall was handed over to Halifax Borough and it was opened as a museum in June 1934.