A peek inside Anne Lister’s writing room

The prolific diarist ‘refused to be invisible’.

Anne Lister (1791-1840) was a landowner, a businesswoman, a traveller, a knowledge seeker, and most famously, a diarist and a lesbian.

All these things (except perhaps the diary-keeping) were unusual – and certainly in the latter case, unacceptable – pursuits for a woman in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries.

But Lister was not interested in conforming – not in the way she lived, the way she dressed (predominantly in black), or the way she loved.

A portrait of Anne Lister painted by Joshua Horner, c.1830.

As Suranne Jones, who played Lister in ‘Gentleman Jack’, the BBC drama series about her life, has said: "She was so far ahead of her time, and so centred in her God-given nature of who she was."

We know so much about Lister, and have such a unique insight into her thoughts and feelings, because she left behind 26 volumes of diaries, comprising 7,720 pages and around 5million words! (In comparison, the UK’s other famous diarist, Samuel Pepys, wrote around 1.25million words.)

About one sixth of her entries were written in code – what Lister called “crypt hand” – to disguise from any prying eyes the details of her lovers and sexual adventures, as well as her more forthright opinions about others.

Sally Wainwright, writer of ‘Gentleman Jack’, has said: "She refused to be invisible. Life disappears once you've lived it; it's gone and there's no record of it. I think to have made such an extraordinary record of your own life, it's like saying 'I was here', big time.”

Most of Lister’s writing took place while she was living at Shibden Hall, in Halifax, in the north of England. She moved there in 1815 to live with her aunt and uncle and took over management of the estate in 1826 when her uncle died (officially inheriting it in 1836 following the death of her aunt and father).

The exterior of Shibden Hall today.

And it’s at Shibden Hall that ‘Gentleman Jack’ was filmed. All except the scenes in which Lister writes in her diary.

Scenes of Lister (played by Suranne Jones) writing in her diary in the BBC drama, ‘Gentleman Jack’. Images via BBC iPlayer.

As I was told on a visit to Shibden, the original writing room was too small to film in, so it was recreated in a studio. At the house – peering through a glass door – visitors can see the real thing:

Anne Lister’s modest writing room at Shibden Hall. The room features a top hat and cane, two of the key elements of costume from the BBC drama series. However, top hats were never mentioned in her diaries nor appear in her clothing inventories. Rather, it was a choice of the show’s costume designer, intended as a shorthand to convey Lister’s non-conformity to feminine expectations.