The Secret Diaries Of Miss Anne Lister

by Helena Whitbread

  Tuesday 3 August [Kirby Lonsdale]

  Good bed. Slept well. Dressed & undressed in our little sitting-room a story [sic] below our bedroom. Tolerably comfortable. Good water closet, rather a rare luxury hereabouts at inns. Rainy morning… We would make the best of our way home (by Kendal, Kirby Lonsdale, Settle, Skipton, & Keighley)… Very good breakfast. Good bread & butter, & oat-bread, & tea-cake, and very good boiled milk. Potted char, too, but less strong of mace and too much pepper’d & not so good as that yesterday at Patterdale Inn. Off from Ambleside at 10.40. Caradoc’s bandage would not stay on & he was obliged to go without it. George rode him. The little horse in the gig. Foot’s pace the whole way… The little horse off his food. Could not eat his corn. I wish we were all safe at home again… Pursued the direct road to Kendal, and stopt there at 3.10. Ordered George to get a leather boot made for Caradoc. Slept or dozed on the sopha at the inn ½ an hour. Baited the horses 1 hour, 20 minutes, & off to Kirby Lonsdale at 4.35, and arrived at 8… Rose & Crown or Roper’s Hotel. Dinner at 9. Lamb chops, boiled chicken, potatoes & peas. Cold, boiled round of beef. Cold turkey pie. Apple, currant & raspberry tarts, & a pint of port wine, said to have been 6 years in the bottle. Better than at Ambleside but not to be compared with the wine at Penrith. We both of us enjoyed our dinner… Went into my bedroom at 11½. Had the bed made over again to put the mattress on the top. Helped the chambermaid to do it. Extraordinary I did not then observe the sheets were not clean.

  Wednesday 4 August [Settle]

  Ordered breakfast at 9¼. Sat down to it as soon as it was brought in at 9¾. Very bad tea for my aunt. Good bread & good potted trout, but not so good as Mrs Hartley’s at Settle. Indifferent butter & the milk not so good as I have had elsewhere. Made a rowe [sic] about not having had clean sheets on my bed last night. Mrs Roper herself declared they were clean, but so much worn it made them feel so soft & tumbled (i.e. not well got up after washing), & I therefore gave the chambermaid a 2nd shilling, saying I was sorry to have made her uneasy by my mistake… Stopt at the Golden Lion, Hartley’s Hotel, here (Settle) at 4¾. Ordered beds & dinner… Dinner (good) at 6. Boiled salmon, Scotch collops, veal, cold fore-quarter of lamb, & cold duck, & a cold roast fowl all uncut. Potatoes & peas. Very excellent potted trout, & rhubarb tart. Very good dinner. We had each a glass of negus afterwards.

  Friday 6 August [Halifax]

  Got home at 12½… Scarcely spoke to my uncle but went upstairs immediately to read my letters… A large kippered salmon, split & fixed flat on a board cut to the shape, had arrived for me on the 2nd inst. sent by Isabella… After reading my letters, came downstairs for near an hour. About 3, went upstairs again. Put by all my clothes & finally settled our travelling account. Our expenses have averaged, including the hack-horse, about 2 guineas a day.

  Saturday 7 August [Halifax]

  At 2½, went down to see Caradoc bled. Mr Gill took a full gallon from the toe of the off hind fetlock… My aunt came to us. Her journey has done her good – but she will soon, I fear, be as bad as ever again. Her habit is confirmedly gouty & she becomes very feeble in her limbs… M— told me my back was getting round. Got the yard wand & held it at my back with pain & difficulty, when undressed, near ten minutes this morning & above five tonight, meaning to continue this plan till I get my shoulders properly back.

  Wednesday 11 August [Halifax]

  Letter from Isabella, dated ‘Edinburgh. Sun. 8 Aug. 1824’… ‘Berwick-upon-Tweed is a good town & here I sent you a kippered salmon… It is to be dressed upon the gridiron & sent to table in small oblong pieces.’ She has sent me, from Edinburgh, ‘a cloak made of the Maclean plaid’ and ‘a pot of Scotch marmalade’ which I am to get in a few days.

  Tuesday 17 August [Halifax]

  Called with my aunt for ¼ hour on Mrs Catherine Rawson. Miss Bessy Staveley there. Very smart & vulgar. Bowed so slightly she saw I meant to cut her, & instantly got up & went away… Found the bank door shut. Mr Saltmarshe’s servant gave the technical 3 raps with the end of a key & I got in & got my concerns settled. Took the whole of the balance due. Twenty pounds, nineteen & sixpence.

  Friday 20 August [Halifax]

  Walked direct (down the old bank) to Halifax. Made several shoppings. Ordered about my basket oil-case cover mending at Furniss’s. A light trunk, covered with leather (a small imperial) the size of my basket, would cost £1. An oil-case cover for it 10/–. I think I shall try this plan another time. Returned up the old bank. A long while talking to Jackman, giving orders about the farmyards & sheds.

  Saturday 21 August [Halifax]

  My aunt gave me one hundred and twenty-five, from my uncle, that is, 150 altogether, pounds for my journey to Paris. Came upstairs at 10.40. All the day till 6¾, looking over my writing desk, writing drawer, books & papers & arranging so that I can leave them tidily. Dinner at 6.40. In the evening for about 1¼ hour, writing out travelling memoranda.

  Monday 23 August [Halifax]

  Disturbed sleep last night. Gave Hotspur oatmeal & water. Came upstairs at 8.50. All the day, till 6¾, packing & siding my drawers… Letter from… Madame de Boyve (Place Vendôme, 24a Paris), merely a civil acknowledgement of my last & to say all is ready for me. Dinner at 6.50. My father & Marian called in the evening. Then wrote the above & dawdled over arranging the contents of my writing desk… My aunt rather low at parting. My uncle looked an anxious look, & I felt the sickly feeling of going.

  The extended trip to Paris became, in some ways, a watershed in Anne’s life. She had much to leave behind her and, at the same time, much to look forward to. She had succeeded in distancing herself from the hurt of her affair with M—. Anne had become more critical, less easily swayed by her emotions and thus more firmly in control of her life. At home, the death of her Uncle James in 1826 and her aunt’s failing health meant that she became the prime agent in the business affairs at Shibden Hall.

  Anne’s life, from her return from Paris onwards, took on a more serious aspect and, as her work at home increased, so did her desire to find a life-partner. The new woman in her life, reasoned Anne, would have to have both rank and fortune to bring to the partnership and, looking back over her old loves, Anne decided that she could do better for herself. The story of this quest, as also the story of her adventurous travels, lies outside the scope of this volume, but it reveals that Anne lost none of her zest for life nor her talent for acute observation of the scenes and people around her in later years.

  She did not, however, discontinue her old friendships. Nonetheless, her relationships with Isabella Norcliffe and Mariana Lawton were never again to have the same intensity. She continued a platonic friendship with each of them. Isabella died in 1846, at the age of sixty-one, having outlived Anne by six years.

  The liaison with M— was the more enduring of the two. M— had been the truest love of Anne’s life and never again was Anne able to invest any relationship with the ardour she had felt for M—. Anne continued to offer a place of refuge at Shibden Hall for M— should her marriage become too difficult or should she become a widow. In fact, M— did briefly leave her husband in March 1826, but decided to return to him. The short interlude, during which C— appealed to Anne to intervene for him with M— in an attempt to mend the rift, brought about a reconciliation between Anne and C—, and thereafter Anne paid visits to Lawton Hall, which she had hitherto vowed she would never do. As with Isabella, the friendship continued through letters and visits, gradually becoming less important to Anne as travel, business affairs and new friendships came more and more to absorb her time and thoughts. M— died in October 1868, in her seventies, some twenty-eight years after Anne’s death.

  Anne Lister’s life was cut short during what she termed her ‘wild but delightful wanderings’. In 1839, she and her new companion left Shibden Hall for an extended tour of Europe and Russia. Fifteen months later, still on their travels to the remoter parts of Russia, Anne contracted a fever and died rapidly. She was in her fiftieth year. Her body was brought back to Shi
bden Hall and she was buried in the churchyard of the Parish Church, Halifax. The local press reports were as follows:

  Halifax Guardian, 31 October 1840

  Deaths: On Tuesday 22 September, at Koutais, of la fièvre chaude, Mrs [Mistress] Lister of Shibden Hall, Halifax, Yorkshire.

  Local Intelligence: The late Miss Lister of Shibden Hall

  In our obituary this week, we regret to record the name of this respected and lamented lady, whose benefactions to our charitable and religious institutions will long be remembered and whose public spirit in the improvement of our town and neighbourhood is attested by lasting memorials. In mental energy and courage she resembled Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Lady Hester Stanhope; and like those celebrated women, after exploring Europe, she extended her researches to those Oriental regions, where her career has been so prematurely terminated. We are informed that the remains of this distinguished lady have been embalmed and that her friend and companion, Miss Walker, is bringing them home by way of Constantinople, for interment in the family vault. She died near Tefliz but within the Circassian border. Miss Lister was descended from an ancient family in Lancashire, the main branch of which is represented by the noble line of Ribblesdale.

  Halifax Guardian, 1 May 1841

  The late Mrs Lister. The remains of this lady (who, our readers will remember, died at Koutais, in Imerethi, on 22 September last), arrived at Shibden Hall late on Saturday night and were interred in the parish church on Thursday morning.

  NOTES

  1816

  1. The Crescent, designed by John Carr of York and modelled on the Royal Crescent, Bath, is an impressive piece of Georgian architecture. Built between 1780 and 1784 for the 5th Duke of Devonshire, the west and east wings accommodated two hotels, the Crescent Hotel and the Great Hotel. The centre of the Crescent was reserved for the Duke’s town house until 1804 when he ceased using it and it then became converted into the Centre Hotel.

  2. The Great Hotel formed the east wing of the Crescent.

  3. Rev. Sir Thomas Horton, 3rd baronet 1758–1821, of Chadderton, Manchester, rector of Whittington and vicar of Badsworth. Thomas married in 1779 the Hon. Elizabeth Stanley (died 1796), daughter of Lord Strange and granddaughter of the 11th Earl of Derby; they had one daughter, Charlotte, who is relevant to Halifax as she married (1808) ‘Colonel’ Pollard of Stannary Hall, with whom Anne Lister was acquainted. The baronetcy became extinct in 1821. Sir Thomas died in Halifax. From Anne Lister’s diary: Friday 2 March 1821 – ‘Sir Thomas Horton, Bart. [Mrs. Pollard’s father] died some time last night, or rather early this morning, at his house at Barum-top.’ [My thanks to David Glover for the above information.]

  4. Calderdale District Archives (hereafter CDA). Ref. SH:7/ML/ E/26/20.11.1816.

  1817

  1. Marian Lister, Anne’s younger sister, who lived with their parents, Captain Jeremy Lister and his wife, Rebecca, at the family estate in Market Weighton, East Riding of Yorkshire.

  2. Northgate House, belonging to the Lister estate in Halifax and occupied at that time by Anne’s uncle Joseph Lister and his wife, Mary.

  3. The Rawson family were amongst the most prominent of the Halifax families whose wealth derived from the burgeoning manufacturing trade. Their wealth enabled them to move into the banking industry. For a more comprehensive account of the Rawson family in Anne Lister’s era see ‘The Rawson Family’ by Arthur Porritt, Halifax Antiquarian Society Transactions (hereafter HAST), 1966 (pp.27–52). Also The Genesis of Banking in Halifax by Ling Roth, H. F. King, Halifax, 1914.

  4. Louisa (Lou) Belcombe, sister to Mariana.

  5. In 1788 Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, daughters of Irish aristocratic families, caused a scandal by eloping from Ireland in order to pursue their dream of spending their lives together. They settled in a remote cottage in Llangollen, North Wales, where they remained until their deaths. Their reputations became greatly enhanced by the way in which they epitomised the Romantic image of a life lived simply, in harmony with nature, à la Rousseau. See The Ladies of Llangollen: A Study in Romantic Friendship by Elizabeth Mavor, London, 1971 (reprinted by Penguin, 1981) and Life with the Ladies of Llangollen, compiled and edited by Elizabeth Mavor, Viking, 1984. Although the Ladies stoutly rebutted any innuendoes about the possible sexual nature of their friendship, Anne Lister, who visited them in 1822, was convinced that they were lovers.

  6. The Rev. Samuel Knight, a distinguished classicist and fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, became the Vicar of Halifax in 1817 following the death of the previous incumbent, Dr Coulthurst, in that year. See ‘The Georgian and Early Victorian Church in the Parish of Halifax’ by J.A. Hargreaves, M.A., HAST, 1990 (p.49).

  7. Situated in Church Street, Halifax, the medieval Halifax Parish Church of St John the Baptist had been the place of worship for the Lister family for centuries. It was built in the fifteenth century on the site occupied by two previous churches, the first of which was thought to date from c.1120. The second church was built between 1274 and 1316. The present building incorporates remains of both these earlier churches in its structure. See ‘The Evolution of the Parish Church, Halifax (1455–1530)’ by T. W. Hanson, HAST, 1917 (pp.181–204). Also, ‘Halifax Parish Church’ by R. Bretton, F.H.S., HAST, 1967 (pp.74–91).

  8. Manservant at Northgate House.

  9. Maidservant at Northgate House.

  10. Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796–1817), only child of the Prince Regent (later George IV). She married, in 1816, Prince Leopold (1790–1865) of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who later became King of the Belgians. The only child of the marriage, a boy, was stillborn on 5 November 1817. Charlotte died the following day, ‘in the grip of post-partum haemorrhage’. See The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline by Flora Fraser, Papermac (MacMillan), 1997 (p.297).

  11. Mary Jane Marsh, an unmarried woman of outwardly genteel pretensions behind which lurked an astute and scheming mind. A clergyman’s daughter, and sister to another clergyman, she had insinuated herself into the household of the benevolent Mr and Mrs Duffin as companion to the elderly and ailing Mrs Duffin. Her ministering duties also came to include fulfilling the sexual needs of Mr Duffin. In short, braving the discreet scandal-mongering whispers of York society, she became his mistress with an opportunistic eye on becoming the second Mrs Duffin. At this point in their lives, Mr Duffin was sixty-two and Miss Marsh was thirty-eight. It was to be seventeen more long years before Mr Duffin finally took her as his wife. Mrs Duffin died in 1823 and Mr Duffin and Miss Marsh were finally married on 20 September 1826 at Holy Trinity Church, Micklegate, York. See York Gazette 30.9.1826 and 29.10.1826.

  12. Manservant at Shibden Hall.

  13. A hatchment is a square or lozenge-shaped piece of material depicting the family crest or arms of a deceased person. Usually displayed on the outer wall of the deceased’s house for some time after death.

  14. William Duffin, formerly a surgeon employed in Madras by the East India Company, was an influential character in York. A medical practitioner, he had been appointed Director of the York Dispensary in 1818. He was a member of the York Philosophical Society. He lived in Micklegate, York and died in 1839, aged ninety-two.

  15. Rebecca Lister (née Battle) was born at Welton Hall, in the small village of Welton, near South Cave in the East Riding of Yorkshire. In 1788 she married Captain Jeremy Lister, a man twice her age. Their marriage was not a happy one. Of the six children she bore him, four (all boys) died at an early age. Only the two girls, Anne and Marian, survived. Disappointment, illness and alcoholism hastened Rebecca’s death at the age of forty-six.

  16. Eliza (Eli) Belcombe, sister to Mariana.

  17. Anne (Nantz) Belcombe, sister to Mariana.

  18. Henrietta (Harriet) Milne, sister to Mariana. Married to a military man, Lieutenant-Colonel Milne.

  19. Manservant in the Belcombe household.

  20. Situated in Blake Street, the Assembly Rooms were built for the purpose of providing a venue where the élit
e of York could gather for social entertainments such as card-games and dancing. The building, designed on the lines of an ancient Egyptian hall, was begun in 1730, first used in August 1732, but not entirely completed until 1735.

  21. The Rev. Dr H. W. Coulthurst (1753–1817). Vicar of Halifax 1790–1817. He established the first free dispensary to meet the medical needs of the poor in Halifax. See Halifax by J. A. Hargreaves, M.A., Edinburgh University Press, 1999 (pp.88–9).

  22. The variation in the times recorded by Anne is interesting. Greenwich Mean Time was not fully adopted throughout Great Britain until 1855.

  23. A notorious accident blackspot, even today, over the moors between Yorkshire and Lancashire.

  1818

  1. Rebecca Lister’s inheritance from her father had provided them with an estate near Market Weighton on which, in 1793, Jeremy Lister had built Skelfler House (or Farm). There were other older properties on the estate, such as the Grange Farm and Low Grange, which were rented out to small tenant-farmers. Jeremy’s inefficient business methods soon ran the estate into debt and, by the time of his wife’s death, his financial position seemed irredeemably hopeless.

  2. The Halifax Circulating Library was originally established in 1768 in an upper room of the Old Cock Inn. In 1818 it was moved to premises at Ward’s End, adjoining the Theatre Royal. Eventually, the library was housed in the new Assembly Rooms some time after they were built in 1828. See ‘Halifax Circulating Library, 1768–1866’ by E. P. Rouse, HAST, 1911 (pp.45–59) and also ‘Libraries in Halifax’ by Derek Bridges, HAST, 1999 (pp.38–50).