Lister was the son of Thomas Lister of
Armitage Park,
Staffordshire, and his first wife Harriet Anne Seale. His maternal grandfather was John Seale. His paternal half-sister Adelaide Lister was first married to their second cousin,
Thomas Lister, 2nd Baron Ribblesdale, and then to
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell. Lister was educated at
Westminster School and
Trinity College, Cambridge. He was the brother of novelist
Harriet Cradock. His several novels include
Granby (1826),
Herbert Lacy (1828), and
Arlington (1832).
Granby, an early example of the silver fork novel, was favourably reviewed by
Sydney Smith in the
Edinburgh Review. He also wrote a
Life of Clarendon. His 1830 story entitled "A Dialogue for the Year 2130" might be described as an early example of science fiction or "futuristic" writing, of the kind later popularized by
Jules Verne and
H. G. Wells. Published in
The Keepsake, a literary annual, it looks forward to a world in which gentlemen go hunting on machines and shoot horses, while a certain Lady D. owns a troublesome automatic letter-writer and is served by a "steam-porter", which opens doors. In 1836 he was appointed the first Registrar General for
England and Wales heading a new
General Register Office. He set up the system of
civil registration of births, deaths and marriages and organized the
1841 UK Census. ==Personal matters==