The Secret Diaries Of Miss Anne Lister

by Helena Whitbread

  8. Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, where Mariana’s brother Dr Stephen Belcombe and his wife Harriet lived. Anne and Mariana had been invited to act as sponsors at the christening of their new baby.

  9. Ann Walker – at this point, Anne Lister had no deep interest in her young neighbour. A decade later, however, there was a dramatic shift in Anne Lister’s attitude towards her. [See n.1.]

  10. Holy Trinity Church, Harrison Road, Halifax, was opened in 1798. See Hargreaves’ Halifax (pp.99 and 221).

  11. For an account of this royal extravaganza, from which the queen was excluded, see A Queen on Trial by E. A. Smith, Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd, 1993 (pp.186–91).

  12. The berry of a shrub, native of Java, resembling a grain of pepper. Used for medicines or spices.

  13. The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. First published in 1782, Rousseau’s Confessions are hailed as the precursor of modern autobiography and earned him the title of ‘Father of the Romantic Movement’. Anne Lister took him as her model and certainly his opening paragraphs in Book One of the Confessions could be applied to the spirit in which Anne Lister’s journals were written:

  I have begun on a work which is without precedent, whose accomplishment will have no imitator. I propose to set before my fellow-mortals a man in all the truth of nature; and this man shall be myself.

  I have studied mankind and know my heart; I am not made like any one I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature has acted rightly or wrongly in destroying the mold in which she cast me, can only be decided after I have been read.

  14. A euphemism for the lavatory or water-closet, as it was then called. Shibden Hall did not seem to possess one at the time Anne was writing but this was her tentative plan for its location. Before its installation, the Listers used to go to ‘the place’, as Anne described whatever area was used for the purpose, at some distance from the house. Alternatively, they used what she called ‘footpots’, in their bedrooms, which some luckless serving-maid emptied.

  15. Anne could be referring here to the small medieval (c.1500) parish church of St Michael le Belfry which nestles in the shadow of its bigger sister church, York Minster. Alternatively, it could be a reference to the York Minster belfry.

  1822

  1. Joséphine Duchesnois (1777–1835), star of the Théâtre Français. She had many lovers, including Napoleon, and was also pursued by the lesbian Mademoiselle Raucourt (1756–1815), who was president of a distinguished lesbian club which flourished in Paris in the 1780s called The Anandrynes, founded by a Mme Furiel whose house was the meeting place. See Rictor Norton, ‘Romantic Friendships among Women’, Lesbian History, 23 August 2009. http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/romantic.htm

  2. It seems Anne was struck by the fact that, in a temper or in the heat of the moment, her friend had addressed her in masculine terms and had used the ‘vulgar’ word ‘fellow’. Had her friend called her a ‘gentleman’, Anne would not have felt her dignity to be so much under attack. She was always rather pleased to have masculine qualities attributed to her but did not relish being debased to a ‘good fellow’.

  3. Mariana Lawton (née Belcombe) was born in Vienne in 1790, during the time her father, Dr Belcombe, spent working on the Continent. At one point he was employed by Schweppes to promote the benefits of their ‘new aerated water’ in England. (My thanks to Janet Roworth for this information.) In 1827, Anne was travelling on the Continent herself and wrote to Mariana about her travel plans. ‘… mention having heard from Mrs Johnston – her admiration of Nice & the situation of Vienne. [I] must indeed see M[ariana]’s birthplace.’ CDA Ref. SH:7/ML/E/10/7.12.1827.

  4. The reference to Hotspur and Percy relates to Sir Henry Percy (1364–1403), who was known as ‘Harry Hotspur’. He was the son of Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland. A famous northern warrior, Hotspur was immortalised in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I. Percy was also Mariana Lawton’s middle name.

  5. Individual banks issued their own notes prior to the Bank of England becoming the sole issuing authority in the twentieth century. For an account of early banking practices in Halifax see The Genesis of Banking in Halifax by Ling Roth, H. F. King, Halifax, 1914 and Banking in Yorkshire by W. C. E. Hartley, Dalesman Publishing Co. Ltd, 1975.

  6. Adam Blair – a novel by J. G. Lockhart. First published in 1822, the book caused a sensation in that its theme was that of the fall from grace of a minister of the Church of Scotland. For Anne Lister’s emotional reaction to the novel, see the extract dated Monday 8 December 1823 (p.342).

  7. Mr Webb was the proprietor of the Black Bear Hotel, Piccadilly, which Anne frequented almost every time she visited London.

  8. Eliza Raine was a young Anglo-Indian girl who became Anne’s first lover. They were both boarders at the Manor School where, aged fourteen, they shared a bedroom. Their friendship quickly developed into a very intense and passionate love affair.

  9. Hammersley’s – the London bank and Bureau de Change which Anne used every time she travelled.

  10. Meat purchased from butchers’ shops situated in the Shambles, a medieval street in York which is still famous for its historical preservation.

  1823

  1. In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet whom the gods punished for his misdemeanours by changing him into a woman for seven years.

  2. White Windows, Sowerby, near Halifax. The Priestleys were a large family of woollen manufacturers. At this time they had been the occupants of White Windows for around three hundred years. George Priestley (1786–1849) was the last of the family to live there. See ‘Famous Sowerby Mansions: White Windows’ by H. P. Kendall, HAST, 1906 (pp.105–15).

  3. The Robinsons of Thorpe Green, near York, are famous for their connection to the Brontë family. In 1840, Anne Brontë became governess to the children of the Rev. Edmund Robinson. She was joined by her brother, Branwell, in 1842, when he was employed as tutor to the eldest boy. Both Brontës left their employ in 1845. Anne ‘of her own accord’, but Branwell because of suspicions that he had been conducting an affair with his employer’s wife, Mrs Robinson. See The Brontës by Juliet Barker, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994 (pp.456–70).

  4. The costs of contesting for a seat in parliament were as high in the nineteenth century as they are today but, unlike modern politics, there were no party funds which a prospective candidate could draw on for his election expenses. As a result, the problems caused by money in politics could be ruinous. See ‘Parliamentary Beggars’ in The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III by Lewis Namier, Macmillan Press Ltd (pp.402–25).

  5. Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) was the daughter of Jacques Necker (1732–1804), Swiss banker and France’s director-general of finance under Louis XVI. She was a flamboyant, highly intellectual woman whose literary salons, championship of women’s rights and numerous love affairs brought her great notoriety. Her ongoing opposition to Napoleon culminated in her exile from Paris in 1803.

  6. Juvenal’s Sixth Satire was a particular touchstone for Anne when she wished to discreetly investigate the sexuality of women acquaintances whose orientation she suspected to be similar to her own. Anna Clark tells us that:

  When Juvenal refers to lesbian behaviour, it is in oblique and negative terms: for instance, when Tullia and her foster sister Maura pass the ancient shrine of Chastity.

  It’s here

  They stop their litters at night, and

  Piss on the goddess’ form,

  Squirting like siphons, and ride each

  Other like horses, warm

  And excited, with only the moon as

  Witness. Then home they fly

  (Clark, op. cit., pp. 33–4).

  7. Located on the East Yorkshire coast and originally a small fishing port, Scarborough had become a spa in the early seventeenth century, when a local woman, Mrs Farrar, found water bubbling from a spring which was said to contain certain minerals
beneficial to health. Later in the century, as sea-bathing became fashionable, the spa became a popular seaside resort, possibly the first of its kind in Britain. See K. Snowden, Scarborough Through the Ages: The Story of the Queen of Watering Places, Castleden Publications, 1995. Anne Brontë died in Scarborough and her grave lies in the field opposite the church of St Mary’s just below the castle. For an account of her death and funeral, see Barker, pp.592–596.

  8. The White Horse Inn (previously known as the Coach and Horses) is still in business and has stood on the site since 1671.

  9. ‘What is to prevent a man telling the truth with a smile?’

  10. The date when Anne first became aware of Mariana’s intention to marry Charles Lawton.

  11. ‘I know my own heart and I know men. I am not made like any other I have seen. I dare to believe myself to be different from any others who exist.’

  12. ‘Widish’, meaning rather wide, which could mean well-spaced-out handwriting. In other parts of the journal Anne makes her writing ‘very small’ and uses many abbreviations, in order both to save paper and perhaps to deter curious readers.

  13. Mariana’s wedding night. Anne and Mariana’s sister, Anne Belcombe, had accompanied the newly-weds on their honeymoon. Later, Anne confided to a Maria Barlow, her lover in Paris, how much she had suffered: ‘I arranged the time of getting off to bed the first night. Left Mrs Barlow to judge what I felt, for I had liked [Mariana] much.’ CDA. Ref. SH:7/ML/ 8/10.12.1824.

  14. Will o’the wisp, or the pursuit of an unattainable ideal.

  15. Glenarvon is Lady Caroline Lamb’s first novel. When it appeared in May 1816 it created a scandal because it appeared to be a kiss-and-tell (or as Byron crudely put it, a ‘F— and publish’) account of her affair with him in 1812. The characters are drawn from Lady Caroline Lamb’s social circle, the pinnacle of British Society during the ‘Regency’ (1811–1820), when George III was declared incompetent to rule and the Prince of Wales acted the King’s role as Regent. Glenarvon is set, however, during the brutally suppressed Irish Rebellion of 1798, and it strikes anti-establishment political notes. Paul Douglass, ‘Glenarvon’ in The Literary Encyclopedia, first published 19 October 2004 [http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16597 accessed 11 August 2010].

  16. The Art of Employing Time to the Greatest Advantage, the True Source of Happiness by Henry Colburn, London, 1822. Republished by Central Books, U.S., 2009.

  1824

  1. CDA. Ref. Sh:7/ML/E/7/6.1.1824.

  2. Halifax became infamous for retaining the Gibbet Law long after it had fallen into disuse in the rest of the country. John Hargreaves tells us that: ‘The establishment of a prototype guillotine, or gibbet, as it was known locally, gained notoriety for the town, with some sixty-three recorded executions between 1286 and 1650. An apocryphal beggars’ litany prayed: “From Hull, Hell and Halifax, good Lord deliver us.”’ See Hargreaves’ Halifax, Edinburgh University Press, 1999, pp.18–19. Also The Story of Old Halifax by T. W. Hanson, The Amethyst Press, Otley, 1985, pp.168–172.

  3. Sibella MacLean was a thirty-four-year-old Scottish woman of good birth and breeding whose influence, eventually, was to significantly alter the trajectory of Anne’s life, weaning her away from her old friends by introducing her into the aristocratic circle with which Sibella was connected – a world which Anne’s ambitious heart had long wished to embrace. The MacLeans were an important clan or family in the history of the Inner Hebridean islands off the west coast of Scotland. Sibella’s father was the 15th Laird of Coll, a small island some four miles west of Mull, which is itself the second largest island of the Inner Hebrides.

  4. Despite Anne’s seduction of Anne Belcombe in 1816, the affair was not resumed. Anne Belcombe never married. She died, aged sixty-two, at The Grove, Lawton, Cheshire.

  5. Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality: In Nine Nights was a poetic meditation by Edward Young (1681–1765). It was an instant success when it was first published c.1742–45 and, due to its melancholy introspection, gained the reputation of a classic in the era of the Romantic Movement.

  6. Mme de Boyve – proprietress of 24 Place Vendôme, Paris, where Anne was a paying guest from 1 September 1824 until 15 January 1825. See No Priest But Love by Helena Whitbread (ed.), Smith Settle and New York University Press, 1992 (pp.10–72).

  7. ‘The Maid of Buttermere’, as she became known, Mary Robinson (1778–1837) was the daughter of a local hotelier. Her beauty attracted the notice of many tourists, including the Romantic poets. She is mentioned in Wordsworth’s Prelude. Novels have been written about her life, the most recent of which is Melvyn Bragg’s The Maid of Buttermere, Sceptre Books, 1987.

  INDEX

  AL stands for Anne Lister n refers to notes

  Alexander, Dr G., 100

  Alexander, Miss, 168–9

  Alexander, Mrs Louis, 138, 258

  Ambleside, 387–8

  Anandrynes, The 410n

  Assembly Rooms (York) 27, 399n

  Astley, Frank (Francis), 284

  Astley, Sir John, 283–4, 289–90, 295, 297

  Astley, Lady, 280, 283–4, 289, 290, 295, 297–8

  Astley, Miss, 284, 289, 295, 298

  Bala, 218

  Bangor, 217

  Barlow, Maria 414n Baxter, Harriet, 246, 258

  Belcombe, Anne 2, 35, 77, 85, 152, 182–3, 275, 325, 415n; affair and relationship with AL, 1, 3–7, 155–7, 158, 187, 275, 373; correspondence with AL, 162, 307

  Belcombe, Eliza (Eli), 35, 152, 188, 190–1, 196, 275, 316, 319

  Belcombe, Harriet see Milne, Henrietta (Harriet)

  Belcombe, Dr Henry Stephen (Steph) 3, 174, 175, 177–8, 408n

  Belcombe, Louisa (Lou), 19, 35, 37, 38, 84, 85, 85–6

  Belcombe, Mariana see Lawton, Mariana

  Belcombe, Dr William 35, 37, 140, 379, 408n, 410n

  Best, Dr Charles 47, 401n

  Best, Mary (née Norcliffe) 47, 78, 186, 267, 275, 401n

  Black Bear Hotel (London) 237, 411n

  ‘black hole’ 151, 407n

  Blair, Adam, 342

  Bowness, 381–2

  Boyve, Mme de, 377, 415

  Briggs, Rawdon, 198

  Brontë, Anne 412n

  Brontë, Anne 413n

  Brontë, Bramwell 412n

  Brook, Rob, 145

  Browne, Copley, 23

  Browne, Miss Maria (later Kelly) 22–3, 51, 52–4, 56, 68–9, 108–9, 122, 209–10, 366, 368, 369, 373; calling on by AL issue, 23, 57, 59, 63, 70, 82, 92, 95, 124–5; dwindling of AL’s interest in, 97, 98, 105, 109, 110–11, 124–5, 414 126–7, 137–8; engagement and marriage to William Kelly, 97, 105, 109, 110; Mariana’s view of, 134–5; relationship with AL, 22–3, 51, 52–4, 56, 57–9, 61, 62, 63, 65–6, 67, 68, 70–2, 73–4, 75, 82, 86–7, 88–90, 92–5, 95, 96, 400n

  Buccleugh, Duke of, 382

  Busfield, Dr, 64

  Butler, ‘Captain’, 295

  Butler, Lady Eleanor 19, 212, 213, 214, 215, 219, 220–1, 223–4, 228, 231, 234, 328, 396– 7n

  Buxton, 1–2

  Byron, Lord, 259; ‘The Cornelian’ 53, 400n; death, 370–1; Don Juan 141, 147, 167, 221, 408– 9n

  Calais, 239–40

  Callista 400– 1n

  Campbell, Thomas 406n

  Canning, George 136, 407n

  Carey, Dr, 61

  Catalani, Madame, 324, 325, 326, 327

  Cawood, William, 159, 161

  Charlotte, Princess, 30, 42; death of 51–2, 397n

  Charlotte, Queen 84, 402– 3n

  Cheshire Yeomanry 119, 405n

  Clare Hall 20, 88, 403n

  Clark, Anna 400– 1n, 413n

  Cliff-hill 160, 407n

  Coates, James, 383–4

  Coates, John, 188, 323, 328–9

  Colburn, Henry: The Art of Employing Time, 340

  Cordingley, Elizabeth Wilkes, 258, 280, 310, 341, 346, 365, 376

  Coulthurst, Rev. Dr H.W. 41, 399n

  Crescent, Th
e 1, 2, 395n

  Croft Rectory, 166, 208

  Croft, Sir Richard, 52

  Crompton, Mrs Gilbert, 265–6

  Crompton, Henrietta, 268, 269, 270–1, 272, 273, 274, 276, 317, 346, 364

  Crompton, Margaret, 267, 268, 269, 270–1, 273, 317

  Crompton, Mary, 270

  Crow Nest 160, 407n

  Dalbiac, Albinia, 80

  Dalton, Esther, 325

  Dalton, Isabella, 208

  Dalton, Reverend James 21, 97, 166, 408n

  Dalton, Maria 353, 408n

  Danby, Mr and Mrs, 83

  Dickens, Charles 408n Dolgella, 218

  Droiiet, 10

  Duchesnois, Josephine 198, 410n

  Duffin, Mr 398n

  Duffin, William 34, 83–6, 126, 131, 151–2, 183, 185, 187, 245, 264, 267, 268, 270, 272–3, 398n

  Dyer, Mr 273–4

  Dyson, Mrs, 208

  Edleston, John 289, 379, 400n

  Edwards of Halifax (booksellers), 106

  Edwards, Mrs, 3, 17, 136, 332

  Edwards, Thomas 404n

  Empson, Amaziah 404n

  Empson, Ellen, 80–2, 81, 104, 140, 141, 146–7, 163, 183, 201–3

  Empson, Mr, 81, 202

  Empson, Mrs 203, 267, 271, 361, 404n

  Favourite (ship), 236

  Fawcett, General, 60

  Fenton, Bell, 252–3

  Friendly Society (York), 159

  George III, King 402– 3n; death 406n

  George IV, King 131, 174, 406n

  Gibbet Law 414– 15n

  Goodricke, Miss, 316, 317, 318, 321, 322

  Grantham, Lord, 325

  Grasmere, 382

  Green, William, 101

  Greenwood, Miss Caroline, 12, 67, 68, 91, 92, 98, 100, 101–2, 106, 107–8, 112, 122, 167, 361

  Greenwood, Miss Ellen, 100, 102

  Greenwood, Miss Susan, 13, 53, 68, 100, 106

  Greenwood, Mr, 204

  Greenwood, Mrs, 52, 56, 67, 87, 90, 100, 146, 147

  Greenwood, Thomas, 193, 291–2, 357

  Grisdale, Miss, 103, 281, 285 [or Griesdale]

  Haigue, Mary, 127

  Halifax Circulating Library 46, 399n

  Halifax Parish Church of St John the Baptist 25, 397n