Early life and education Anne Lister was the second child and eldest daughter of Captain
Jeremy Lister (1753–1836) who, as a young man in 1775, served with the British
10th Regiment of Foot in the
Battles of Lexington and Concord in the American War of Independence. In August 1788, he married Rebecca Battle (1770–1817) of
Welton in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Their first child, John, was born in 1789 but died the same year. Anne Lister was born in
Halifax on 3 April 1791. The family moved in 1793 to an estate named Skelfler House at
Market Weighton, which is where Anne spent her earliest years. A second son, Samuel, who was close to Anne, was born in 1793. The Listers had four sons and three daughters, but only Anne and her younger sister Marian (born 13 October 1798) survived past 20 years old. Raine was the
illegitimate, half-Indian daughter of an
East India Company surgeon in Madras, brought to Yorkshire after his death and set to inherit a substantial amount of money. Lister and Raine shared a bedroom at the boarding school. Raine later became a patient at Clifton House Asylum, run by Belcombe's father, William, in 1814. Eliza Raine was later transferred to Terrace House in
Osbaldwick and died there on 31 December 1860. She is buried in the Osbaldwick churchyard across the road.
Shibden Hall Lister inherited the Shibden estate on her uncle's death in 1826, but she only controlled part of its income until the deaths of both her father and her aunt in 1836, when their shares of the income passed to her. In addition to earnings from the agricultural tenancy, Lister's financial portfolio included properties in town, shares in the canal and railway industries, mining, and stone quarries. Her wealth allowed her some measure of freedom to live as she pleased, and she used the income from her varied portfolio to finance her two passions: the renovation of Shibden Hall, and European travel. She dressed entirely in black (as was normal for gentlemen at the time) and took part in many activities that were not perceived as the norm for women of the time, such as opening and owning a
colliery. She was referred to as "Gentleman Jack" in some quarters. Lawton and Lister were lovers, on and off, for about two decades, including a period during which Lawton was married and to which her husband became resigned. Eventually the women took communion together on Easter Sunday (30 March) 1834 in
Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York, and thereafter considered themselves married, but without legal recognition. The church has been described as "an icon for what is interpreted as the site of the first lesbian marriage to be held in Britain", and the building now hosts a commemorative
blue plaque. The couple lived together at Shibden Hall until Lister's death in 1840. Lister renovated Shibden Hall quite significantly to her own design. Throughout her life, Lister had a strong
Anglican faith, and she remained a
Tory, "interested in defending the privileges of the land-owning aristocracy".
Travel Lister greatly enjoyed travel, although her biographer Angela Steidele suggests her trips in later life were also a way to "evade the self realisation that she had failed at everything she set her hand to". She made her first trip to continental Europe in 1819, when she was 28 years old, travelling with her 54-year-old aunt (also called Anne Lister) on a two-month trip to France. She returned to
Paris in 1824 and stayed there until the following year. Returning to Paris with her Aunt Anne in 1826, she resumed an affair with a widow named Maria Barlow whom she had met on her previous visit to the city. She set out from Paris with Barlow in 1827 on a tour of northern Italy and Switzerland, returning to Shibden Hall the following year. In 1828, she travelled extensively in Scotland with Sibella MacLean. Lister set out for the continent again in 1829. Using Paris as her base, she visited Belgium and Germany before heading south to the
Pyrenees where she did some hiking and crossed the border into Spain. While there, she demonstrated both her strong adventurous streak and considerable physical fitness by ascending
Monte Perdido (), the third highest peak in the Pyrenees. Returning to Shibden Hall in 1831, Lister found life with her father and sister Marian so uncomfortable that she left again almost immediately to visit the Netherlands for a short trip with Mariana Lawton. Altogether, between 1826 and 1832, she spent only a short period of time at Shibden Hall, her travels around Britain and Europe allowing her to avoid spending time at home with her family. She again visited France and Switzerland in 1834, this time for her
honeymoon with Ann Walker. Returning with Walker in 1838, she headed south to the Pyrenees and completed the first "official" ascent of the
Vignemale (), the highest peak in the French Pyrenees. This required a ten-hour hike to reach the top and another seven hours to descend. Lister's final and most extensive trip began in June 1839, when she left Shibden Hall accompanied by Walker and two servants; they travelled in their own carriage through France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Russia, arriving in
St Petersburg in September and
Moscow in October. With a reluctant Walker in tow, she left Moscow in February 1840 in a new Russian carriage and with very warm clothing. They travelled south, along the frozen
Volga river, to the
Caucasus. Few people from
Western Europe had visited this area, let alone West European women, in part because of unrest amongst the local population against the
Tsarist regime. At times they needed a military escort, and the two women were a source of great curiosity to the people they visited. As Lister noted in her diary, "The people coming in to look at us as if we were some strange animals such as they had not seen the like before."
Death , where Anne Lister is buried Lister died on 22 September 1840, aged 49, of a fever at Koutais (now
Kutaisi in
Georgia) while travelling with Ann Walker. Walker had Lister's body brought back to the UK, where she was buried in
Halifax Minster, on 29 April 1841. Her tombstone was rediscovered in 2000, having been covered by a floor in 1879. In her will, Lister's estate was left to her paternal cousins, but Walker was given a
life interest. More than 40 years after her death, while reporting on a dispute over the ownership of Shibden Hall, the
Leeds Times in 1882 stated, "Miss Lister's masculine singularities of character are still remembered". ==Diaries==