LHMP #563 Liddington 1993 Anne Lister of Shibden Hall

This is not so much an article about Anne Lister history as it is Anne Lister historiography. It traces the awareness of her life and diaries, both scholarly and popular. The article begins with a very brief biography that situates her life in time and space.

Initial awareness of the importance of the Lister papers centered on their scope and the potential for detailed evidence of everyday life in her particular social context. An article in 1991 noted the daunting task for the researcher to tackle the 24 volumes (actually 27) consisting of 2 million words (eventually determined to be more like 4 million) in a relatively difficult hand, even before dealing with the coded “crypt hand” that made up about a sixth of the text. As a comparison, the famously detailed diaries of Samuel Pepys from the 17th century come in at only one and a quarter million words. In the 1991 article, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Lister’s birth, there was only a suggestion that she “may well have been a lesbian” although Whitbread’s first volume of extracts had established the fact rather solidly three years earlier.

The diaries are only a fraction of the archival material from Shibden Hall, which provides essential historical context for the site and family. And Anne Lister’s fascinating personal life is only a small part of the historic value of the archive. But this article focuses on the history of the diaries and their interpretation, including the points where their survival was uncertain.

After Lister’s death in 1840, her estate was left to her wife Ann Walker for her lifetime, after which it would go to relatives. Three years later, Walker’s relatives conspired to have her declared insane, creating a legal squabble between the two families. An inventory of papers was drawn up in 1850 in the midst of this process, including a line-item for 3 parcels labeled “Diaries and Journals of Mrs. Lister.”

After Walker’s death, the property went to a branch of the Lister family that had been living in Wales. John Lister–the key figure in this history–was born seven years after Anne Lister’s death and was eight years old when the family moved to Shibden Hall. Local memory of Anne was no doubt still active, but may have focused on her eccentricity and refusal to marry. The relationship with Ann Walker would likely have been folded into general acceptance of romantic friendships between women. John Lister, in his 40s (circa 1887 onward) begin publishing selections from the diaries in a local paper, focusing on social and political anecdotes.

[Note: There is a prevalent myth in Lister lore that the diaries were “hidden away behind a panel” like a buried treasure. When I visited Shibden Hall, the museum staff took pains to contradict this, pointing out the built-in cabinetry where the diaries and other archives had been kept. John’s work with the diaries also points out that they were known–even if the more controversial contents were yet to be identified.]

Although the ordinary text of the diaries makes regular reference to the women that Anne had relationships with, the personal details were all encoded. John was aware of the cipher but didn’t begin trying to decipher it until he and an antiquarian friend found a phrase that turned out to be something of a Rosetta Stone, confirming the correspondence of a handful of letters.

Their Initial transcriptions revealed material that “turned out…to be entirely unpublishable.” The friend recommended that the diaries be burned to conceal their contents. John Lister refused. This was in 1885, when sexological theories of homosexuality were just beginning to spread. John was no doubt balancing an antiquarian’s respect for ancient documents with a concern for the Lister family reputation. There is also reasonable evidence that John himself was homosexual, which may have added complications to his considerations.

In any event, another 40 years passed before the next engagement with the diaries occurred. John died in 1933 and, although evidence of his deciphering survives in his papers, the knowledge was not passed directly to other scholars. A local librarian took on responsibility for the Lister papers and his daughter, Muriel Green, took on the task of organizing and cataloging. She was stymied by the cipher but began work on Anne’s correspondence. Her father managed to make contact with John’s antiquarian friend who shared how the code had been cracked 50 years earlier, adding a warning about the scandalous contents, but providing the cipher key that he and John had worked out.

Muriel later recalled that she and her father had never discussed Anne’s sexuality at that time and she kept all mention of the topic out of her transcripts of Anne’s letters. In 1938 Muriel published her catalog and transcript of the correspondence (an abridged version of which was published in 1992 as Miss Lister of Shibden Hall).

Another 20 years passed, then Phyllis Ramsden and another local historian decided to tackle the diaries. They don’t appear to have had contact with Muriel, but the local museum committee offered them a copy of the cipher key. Around 1966 they compiled an index and chronology of the contents, including references to content in the cipher, but they censored the sexual content, noting that it was “almost exclusively of such purely personal content as to contain nothing of historic importance or interest.” Their publications were also subject to review and approval by the library committee.

Clearly, awareness of the nature of and coded material was spreading, but it was still considered too scandalous to make public. Indeed, some of the transcripts Ramsden had created were deliberately destroyed to prevent unauthorized use.

But by 1970 access was improving and the requirement for committee approval had dropped. In the mid-1980s, Helena Whitbread began her own transcriptions of the cipher text and published her first volume of extracts I Know My Own Heart in 1988. Now Anne Lister’s lesbianism and self-identification were open knowledge in the world. A second volume followed, detailing Lister’s year in Paris (No Priest But Love) and though there was some controversy around the publications (and the accusation that they put unwarranted emphasis on the more sensational aspects of the diaries) there was no putting the cat back in the bag.

Liddington, having encountered Whitbread’s work, became interested in adding to the project. The remainder of the article focuses on three specific time points, providing excerpts and context: her school years from 1806 to 1810, late 1819, and a brief period in 1832. Liddington’s more extensive books based on Lister research were yet to come when this article was written.

The article concludes with a summary of the key historic importance of Anne Lister’s documentary material, not simply to the history of sexuality, but as a female land owner, and a woman active in industrial and political movements of the day.