The Life of GENTLEMAN JACK

Anne Lister was a true trailblazer, and today her story continues to inspire

- Catherine Curzon

Today, the name of Yorkshire businesswoman and trailblazing lesbian Anne Lister is known to audiences across the globe. Thanks to Gentleman Jack, BBC/HBO’s enormously successful biographical drama, Lister’s life and her refusal to compromise on her ideals and passions have become an inspiration. Yet Anne Lister sprang not from the pages of fiction, but from the very real world of Georgian England. Her story is as remarkable today as it ever was, and a testament to her intelligence and determination in a world that wasn’t used to women who trod their own path.

Anne Lister was born in Halifax, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on 3 April 1791, and spent her early years on the family estate of Skelfler House in Market Weighton. As a child she was a regular visitor to her aunt and uncle’s estate at Shibden Hall, which the landowning Lister family had owned since the 17th century. As a girl in the Georgian era, Anne Lister was not raised to be in business, but to be a wife. When she was seven years old she was sent to school in Ripon, and it was during the years of her education that her character and personality began to flourish.

In a world that hoped to forge little girls into ladylike adults, Anne Lister was going to break the mould. She was a fiercely intelligent and strong-willed student who was hungry to learn about the world around her. As an adult Lister indulged her passion for travel, making trips abroad that were considered ill-suited to a woman, and her curiosity for the wider world was awakened by an education that was never intended to instil a wanderlust in genteel young ladies. Lister left school to be educated at home by the vicar of Market Weighton in 1801, but at the age of 14 she was at boarding school in York.