• Diary excerpts

  • From Anne’s diary, Friday 10th August 1832 (age 42)

    [The first time that Anne Lister put her thoughts in writing about the possibility of courting Ann Walker, the young heiress who lived at Lidgate in the neighbourhood of Shibden.]

    ‘… Thought I, as I have several times done of late, shall I try & make up to her?’

  • From Anne’s diary, Sunday 5th January 1834 (age 43)

    [After eighteen months of an on-and-off courtship, Anne was unsure about whether or not there could be a permanent relationship between them.]

    ‘…Miss W[alker] talks as if she would be glad to take me – then if I say anything decisive she hesitates to. I tell her it is all her money which is in the way. The fact is, she is as she was before [i.e. indecisive], but determined to get away from the Sutherlands and feels the want of me. But [I need to] take someone with more mind and less money. Steph [Belcombe – i.e. Mariana’s brother] is right: she would be a great pother [sic]. [I] have nothing serious to say to her – she wants better manning than I can manage.’

    [See also Jill Liddington’s Female Fortune. Rivers Oram Press. 1998. p.85.]

Anne as businesswoman

In 1826, following the death of her uncle, James Lister, Anne Lister inherited Shibden Hall and its estates. The challenge of managing the estate in such a way that it would both maximise her income and be passed on to her heirs in an improved condition was one which Anne took very seriously. Her entrepreneurial flair, her acquired knowledge, over the years, of mathematics, geology and engineering and her sharp negotiating skills with her male business rivals made her a formidable businesswoman in the newly-emerging world of industrialisation, as is indicated in the following exchange with her defeated rival in the fight for selling coal in the area.

Mr Rawson said he was never beaten but by ladies & I had beaten him. Said I gravely, ‘It is the intellectual part of us that makes a bargain & that has no sex, or ought to have none.’ [24.12.1832]

The estate produced income from its reserves of coal, water, stone and timber and, in addition to those extractive industries, there was an income stream from canal shares, Turnpike Road Trusts and pew rents. It was, however, the stable income, which rents from the farms and cottages on the estate generated, that gave Anne a firm base from which she could branch out into riskier investments.

In the 1830s, when she and her lover Ann Walker set up a joint household at Shibden Hall, Anne was able to avail herself of the Walker money to sink two coal-pits of her own rather than just leasing off the land to be exploited for coal by others. In 1837 one of her last speculative ventures involved transforming Northgate House into a casino.

Although Anne did not live long enough to enjoy the long-term prosperity which she had anticipated from all these ventures, there is no doubt that she left a greatly improved estate for her descendants to enjoy.