"I was now sure of the estate": Anne Lister, part 3

Anne Lister by John Horner, ca. 1830s. Image source: Calderdale Museums: Shibden Hall Paintings

A continuation of "It was all nature": Anne Lister, part 2

"I was now sure of the estate": Anne inherits Shibden Hall

On the morning of Thursday 26 January 1826 Anne's uncle James Lister, the owner of Shibden Hall, collapsed on the floor of his bedroom and died.

The Red Room, the master bedroom in Shibden Hall. Image source: Calderdale Museums: Shibden Hall Paintings

Later that day, in the presence of her father, her sister, and her aunt, Anne read his will aloud. It was a remarkable document, because it left James's "real and personal Estates whatsoever and wherever. . .to my Niece Anne Lister. . .absolutely for ever." [1]

The estate was not entailed on any distant male relatives, as was more customary, but belonged solely to Anne (and was hers to bequeath however she wished in turn). This was especially noteworthy because by this time Anne was in her mid-30s, and it was abundantly clear to everyone in the Lister family that Anne would never have a husband or children.

Anne's desire to have a female companion come share her life at Shibden had been announced to her uncle and aunt four years earlier, just before her visit with her aunt to see the Ladies of Llangollen (see "I only love the fairer sex": Anne Lister, part 1 for details of that visit):

Thursday 27 June 1822: Talking, after supper, to my uncle & aunt about M— [Anne's married lover Mariana Lawton]. One thing led to another until I said plainly, in substance, that she would not have married if she or I had had good independent fortunes. . .& that I hoped she would one day be in the Blue Room, that is, live with me. . .My uncle, as usual, said little or nothing, but seemed well enough satisfied. My aunt talked, appearing not at all surprised, saying she always thought it [Mariana's marriage to Charles Lawton] a match of convenience. [2]

James must have realized that bequeathing Shibden Hall and its lands to Anne risked having it, and the economic, social and political power that land ownership produced, leave the Lister family when Anne herself died.

Shibden Hall. Image source: Calderdale Museums: Shibden Hall

On the night following her uncle's death, Anne wrote in her diary,

Thursday 26 January 1826: On coming upstairs to my room to dress, after seeing my poor uncle, looked into my heart & said, 'Lord, I am a sinner. There is not that sorrow there ought to be.' Felt frightened to think I could think, at such a moment, of temporal gains—that I was now sure of the estate. 'Are others,' said I, 'thus wicked?' and knelt down and said my prayers. Oh, the heart is indeed deceitful above all things. He was the best of uncles to me. Oh, that my heart were more right within me. I shed a tear or two when my father & [sister] Marian came & stopt once in reading the will. I am grave and feel anxious to do, & seem, all that is decorous but there is not that deep grief at my heart I think there ought to be. Oh, that I were better.

James Lister by John Horner, ca. 1826. Image source: Calderdale Museums: Shibden Hall Paintings

Although Anne inherited Shibden Hall, there were some conditions. Anne's father Jeremy and her Aunt Anne, James's brother and sister, were both granted the right to live at Shibden for the rest of their lives. This meant that Marian, who lived with her father, would also be a part of the household.

In addition, her aunt and her father were each granted one-third of the rental income from Shibden's tenants, while her aunt also received dividends from shares in the Calder and Hebble Navigation canal. Those shares had appreciated over time and were now worth £6000, so the dividends probably amounted to several hundred pounds a year.

Anne Lister's aunt Anne Lister by Thomas Binns, ca. 1833. Image source: ArtUK

After splitting the rents with her father and aunt, Anne's other sources of income from the estate derived from stone quarrying and coal mining. These were small operations that would not generate a great deal of money. (In a later post I'll talk about the grim working conditions and the use of child labor in coal mining during the 1830s.) In total Anne received about £800 a year. While that was a substantial sum, Anne had expensive plans. She wanted to undertake extensive renovation projects at Shibden, and her sojourn in Paris the previous year had whetted her appetite for foreign travel; she had dreams of visiting Italy and Russia. (For details of her 1824-25 Paris visit and her affair with Maria Barlow, see "It was all nature".)

Reunion with Mariana

In mid-March 1826 Mariana Lawton arrived at Shibden Hall. The tensions between Mariana and her husband had reached a breaking point, and Mariana was apparently hoping that Anne would invite her to separate from Charles and stay with her permanently at Shibden.

Sunday 12 March 1826: 'Tis plain enough she would leave Charles for half a word but I will not give it. She must weather it out. I am attached to her & have no thought but of being constant—but she must wait. I like not the idea of having another man's wife.

Maria Barlow might contest Anne's assertion that she had "no thought but of being constant" to Mariana Lawton. Nonetheless, Anne's reunion with Mariana was a happy one, and as always their sexual connection remained strong:

Thursday 16 March 1826: Went to Mariana four times, the last time just before getting up. She had eight kisses and I counted ten. Charles worse tempered than ever. . .I urged her going [back], at least for a time. My uncle's death was so recent it would look as if she took this opportunity of parting from him to come to me. She was for [separating from Charles and] going back to her own family. I objected to this. Charles might not live long & then all would be right.

Mariana soon travelled on towards York and beyond to see her family and friends, where she got no more support than she had from Anne for the idea of separating from her husband. (Neither Mariana's father, whose household included three unmarried daughters, nor her brother Stephen, who had a family of his own, were eager to support Mariana if she left her husband.) 

At the end of April Mariana came back through Halifax and stopped at Shibden. She was on her way back to Lawton Hall in Cheshire to reconcile with Charles, but was clearly in no hurry and wound up staying with Anne for a month. On the first Sunday in May the two women took communion together, a ritual which seems to have had special significance for Anne:

Sunday 7 May 1826: We went to the old church. Got there just after the service had begun. . .Mariana & I staid the sacrament—the first time we ever received it together in our lives.

Anne would later participate in the same communion ritual with Ann Walker.

Charles Lawton seemed as concerned with maintaining appearances as Anne did. This led to a series of short trips and visits involving Anne, her aunt, Mariana, and Charles, where the respectability of Anne and Mariana's relationship could be publicly affirmed by the presence of Mariana's husband. In private, Charles' jealousy and suspicion of Anne had apparently subsided into acceptance, or at least complaisance.

Saturday 17 June 1826 [Royal Hotel, Chester]: All quite at our ease. . .Charles retired at 10. My room next to theirs & Mariana & I came in in 5 or ten minutes. She undressed in my room. So did I, quite, & in half an hour we had been in bed, had two or three kisses & Mariana was gone to Charles.

Sunday 18 June 1826 [Mrs Briscoe's Hotel, Parkgate]: . . .room next to Mariana & Charles' and their's so hot Charles glad to have it to himself & Mariana slept in mine.

Tuesday 11 July 1826 [Waterloo Hotel, Liverpool]: Charles seemed inclined to let Mariana sleep with me. However, she went to him after she got into bed to me for a few minutes & given me a tolerable kiss. We heard him snoring all the while [in the room next door]. Mariana dresses in my room, which gives us opportunity.

Waterloo Hotel, Liverpool, late 1800s. Image source: Liverpool History Society

Thursday 13 July 1826 [Mona, Wales]: Charles. . .hardly spoke & left Mariana & me & we sat up twenty minutes & then went to bed, Mariana sleeping with me.

It seems unlikely that Charles can have been entirely unaware of why his wife was spending so much time in Anne's room.

Return to Paris

In August 1826 Anne, her aunt, and Mariana (without Charles) left on a trip to Paris. Callously, Anne had asked Maria Barlow, with whom she had had a passionate affair in Paris two years earlier, to make lodging arrangements for the travelling party.

Saturday 2 September: Off for Paris [from Versailles] at 5. . .We had got into the Rue di Rivoli when Mariana saw a little figure in white dart out of the Hôtel de Terrasse (No. 50) & call out to the post boys to stop. Said Mariana, 'Mrs Barlow.' There was [her 15-year-old daughter] Jane, too. Mrs Barlow pale as death. I felt a little less so. Jumped out of the carriage. Met her. . .she had taken us a rez de chausée [ground floor room] for my aunt and lodging rooms à la entresol du premier [on the first-floor mezzanine] for us at the Hôtel de Terrasse.

No. 50 Rue di Rivoli today. Image source: Google Maps

. . .I walked home with her [Mrs Barlow was still living in the apartment she had rented the previous year with Anne at No. 15 Quai Voltaire, on the Left Bank of the Seine across from the Louvre] & went upstairs to her salon for a few minutes. In crossing the Tuileries gardens, mentioned Mariana's being with us. Mrs Barlow agitated. Said I had behaved dishonestly not to tell her before.

As well she might, having been asked to make arrangements unknowingly for the person she considered to be her rival for Anne's affections. But Anne was no less unthinkingly cruel to Mariana:

Monday 4 September 1826: I had suddenly said, when dinner was half over,. . .'Perhaps I might go to Mrs Barlow,' & this had spoiled poor Mariana's appetite—but she would have me do whatever seemed best. I said I had said it suddenly, without thought, & it would not do. Should think of it no more.

Mariana stayed with Anne in Paris for a month. There was another awkward moment when Anne and Mariana met Mrs. Barlow and Jane unexpectedly in the street:

Tuesday 3 October 1826: At 1-50, went to the top of the column in the Place Vendôme. . .Beautiful view of Paris. . .In returning from the column to the Rue St Honoré, met Mrs Barlow & Jane. Stopt to speak and shake hands. Mrs Barlow's lips trembled. Mariana set wrong & nervous by the meeting but all behaved very well.

The Place Vendôme by Henry Parke, 1820. Image source: Sir John Soane's Museum

Mrs. Barlow must have seen that the women were coming from the Place Vendôme; the pension at No. 24 Place Vendôme, of course, was where Anne and Mrs. Barlow had met and begun their affair.

On Saturday 7 October Anne and Mariana left Aunt Anne in Paris and travelled to Boulogne to meet Charles. He arrived on the 12th and the next day he and Mariana left for England. Anne returned to Paris, and to Mrs. Barlow, with whom she lost no time in renewing her affair. 

In 1827 Anne, Mrs. Barlow and her daughter took a months-long trip to Switzerland and northern Italy while Aunt Anne remained in Paris. But if Maria Barlow hoped the sojourn would result in Anne finally committing to her, it had the opposite effect. By the end of the trip Anne was convinced that Mrs. Barlow was not the life companion she sought. 

Back in Paris Anne soon met a beautiful young widow, Madame de Rosny, who was a part of the aristocratic set surrounding the French king, Charles X. (Anne had been in Paris when Charles X succeeded to the throne on the death of his older brother Louis XVIII in September 1824; after a short and unhappy reign, he would be deposed during the events of the July Revolution in 1830.) Anne and Madame de Rosny embarked on a sexual affair, intense enough that Anne left the apartment she shared with her aunt and moved in (as a lodger) with Madame de Rosny. Although Anne was not presented at court, attending social events with the curdled cream of the French aristocracy was a heady experience.

Anne had clearly moved on from Mrs. Barlow, but she was not above continuing to exploit her feelings. In March 1828 Anne returned to England to visit Mariana, whom she hadn't seen for almost 18 months, leaving her aunt in Paris under Mrs. Barlow's care. But the reunion with Mariana was not a success. The contrast with the graceful, fashionable, socially connected and younger Madame de Rosny was too great:

Sunday 23 March 1828 [Lawton Hall]: . . .I had been so long absent from Mariana I did not know what to do with her. She looked tall and big. She seemed to have grown taller. I felt awkward & said to myself, 'Why, what have I to do with having such a woman?'

True to Anne's usual form, though, the slow death of her relationship with Mariana would drag on for years. In 1830 she would travel to Europe with her again, and as late as June 1833 while travelling with Mariana to London, Anne recorded a sexual encounter (possibly their last). But Anne was now fixed on finding a wealthy younger woman who might elevate her social status and enhance her financial means.

Other posts in this series:

• "I only love the fairer sex": Anne Lister, part 1
• "It was all nature": Anne Lister, part 2
• "Who taught you to kiss?": Anne Lister, part 4
• "Captain Tom": Anne Lister, part 5
• "No historical interest whatever": Anne Lister, part 6

Sources for and works discussed in this series:

I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister, [1816–1824,] Helena Whitbread, ed. Virago, 1988/2010 (as The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister), 422 pgs.

No Priest But Love: Excerpts from the Diaries of Anne Lister, 1824–1826, Helena Whitbread, ed. NYU Press, 1992, 227 pgs.

Jill Liddington, Presenting the Past: Anne Lister of Halifax 1791–1840, Pennine Pens, 1994, 76 pgs.

Female Fortune: Land, Gender and Authority: The Anne Lister Diaries and Other Writings, 1833–1836, Jill Liddington, ed. Rivers Oram Press, 1998, 298 pgs.

The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, written by Jane English, directed by James Kent, starring Maxine Peake as Anne Lister, BBC, 2010, 92 mins.

Gentleman Jack, written and directed by Sally Wainwright and others, starring Suranne Jones as Anne Lister, BBC, 2019–2022, 16 episodes, 950 mins.

Anne Choma, Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister, Penguin, 2019, 258 pgs.

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1. Jill Liddington, editor, Female Fortune, p. 21. Many of the details of James Lister's will and Anne's financial situation are drawn from this source.
2. Quotes from Anne Lister's diary taken from Helena Whitbread, editor, I Know My Own Heart/The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister and No Priest But Love. As in the other installments in this series, diary entries in roman type represent Anne Lister's "plain hand," while those in italics represent her "crypt hand"—the sections written in code.