Anne Lister is My Favorite Conservative Top Part 1
Yes girl boss Anne Lister, of Shibden Hall
Do you hear the people sing? Singing the songs of angry men? It is the music of the people who will not be slaves again!!
When I see people revolt I sing this song. I can’t help it.
Tories, Radicals Whigs, conservatives, reform bills, political riots, and Anne Lister! UK politics are excitingly horrific and my favorite conservative Anne Lister was involved in it all!
Anne Lister is an Aries, and also everyone’s only favorite landlord and probably won’t be after reading this. Born in 1791 in Halifax West Yorkshire.
I am fascinated by Anne Lister, I’m a fan, I am embarrassed by how much of a fan I am of this 18th-century-born white lady from England, but this is not a love letter nor a hate one, but the more I read her diary which is taking years my friends, years, and as the season finale ended, (go watch Gentleman Jack!) I am realizing how complicated she was. Progressive in many ways then conservative in many many others.
She was a diarist, a scientist, she knew different languages, she studied philosophy respected and learned about other religions, deeply into politics, a landowner, she got married to a woman Anne Walker in a church! A daughter a sister and a niece, and a lesbian. She wrote every day in her diary in code, as she knew that her love adventures with women were criminal if ever found out. She was masculine and only wore black, many people called her odd and a curiosity due to her taking the lead in spaces where men were.
This woman was writing every 5 minutes, just writing and writing and kissing very elite women and then writing again, she has 14 volumes of travel notes. She is the first person who completed the challenge of climbing the first ascents of Mont Perdu in the Pyrenees in 1830 and Mount Vignemale in France in 1838. She traveled which was not common for women to do during this time, she had status and refined taste and was among the most elite of people during the 18-19th century. She even met the Queen of Denmark.
She was a savvy businesswoman, she often offended men with her smart brain, usually knowing more than them, she received harassment, jokes, and other cruel comments from men in the coal business, an industry she was well versed in.
Her childhood was described as friendless and during her boarding school experience, she was pushed into the attic to stay away from the girls as her masculine appearance could influence the other girls. ( a wad of BS, I know) She began being a diarist at 15 when she met a mixed West Indian girl Eliza Raine who had wealth but was an outcast due to her race, Eliza was also fetched to live in the attic, which worked out surprisingly perfect for the pair, as Eliza became Anne’s first girlfriend.
Some bits of words from Anne’s diary:
‘I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn. My heart revolts from any other love but theirs.’
“I know my own heart and I know men. I am not made like any other I have seen. I dare believe myself to be different from any others who exist,” wrote Anne Lister in August 1823.
She was never going to marry a man even if it was for show or for money or to just to get the rumors of being “unnatural” off her back, she explained that it would be a sin to lie to God.
“…to act in any way against it would be more of a sin than living my
life in accordance with the nature God has given me.”
Anne brave and firm and holding confidence in her identity continued to have social expectations and aspirations when looking for a partner. In adulthood, she looked over Shibden Hall, her family’s estate that had been in their family for two centuries. She took on the role of the landlady and wasn’t messing around kicking out tenants after giving them a lot of grace with their late rent, but adding new tenants quickly. She had daring spending habits she had servants and did everything she could to hold onto the lifestyle she wanted even in her debts.
Now how can Anne Lister born in Halifax from Shibden Hall defy all societal codes during this time and still sound like a white man! She was a complicated-ass person! And was certainly not here for women's rights! Anne was not trying to have the girlies vote yall I’m sorry and that’s not the worst of it. Her conservative views were disappointing the more and more I read.
Historian Helena Whitebread who is the person to go to if you’re looking for an Anne Lister fan account said:
“ She didn’t think women should be very highly educated, particularly in the classics. She said it would draw a curtain aside which it is better for them not to peep behind,” “Of course, she meant all the sexuality in the classical texts she read. She also didn’t think votes for women were a good idea unless they were women of property – which meant herself of course.”
Anne inherited wealth so she benefited from how society treated wealthy people, she was politically against many reform movements. She was a Tory, which were England’s most elite, aka conservatives. The Whigs are the liberal party and the Radical Party are well the radicals who dare dream of factory reform food, money, and a better life. I know the basics right? how dare they?
And we know if people are poor and hungry neglected hiding in plain sight after building a city it’s not gonna end well. So windows were broken, and things get set on fire. The Window Breaking Election of 1835 also known as the Halifax Election and Anne Lister had many thoughts on these whippersnappers setting her town ablaze, but there are parts of me that believe many of her views were absolutely real but also a front, a bit of an act to keep up in the presence of those who were higher than her in rank ( I’m not making excuses, maybe just a little) she held on to social hierarchies they were very important to her.
There was a scene in Gentleman Jack where she tells her wife, not to ever speak to her like that in front of a servant, I was quite shocked. but there were many of her conservative friends that had a soft spot for the poor people in Halifax. Like John Waterhouse talks with an angry Anne who is offended and just devasted by the radicals protesting in the city, talking with John she says “nothing justifies terror.” John also an elite England Tory is like okay Anne I know we’re rich and all but “ Hunger, poverty, the misery some people must feel in this bitter weather… Maybe it does.” He ate with that line he got her together real quick!
I think some friends of hers were surprised that Anne did not always share the same sympathetic sentiments. In her diary Anne writes about feeling obligated to keep Halifax conservative, she needed a Tory to win the election and even went so far as to actually find tenants who shared the same political views as her. Kicking out the ones who were Whigs. The more conservative people in Halifax meant more votes. And with her problematic efforts, the Radicals lost by one vote.
Anne looking down on the radicals felt a bit silly to me, as she knows what it’s like to be outcasted to not fit in to be unheard and judged. The people she shared a class with barely accepted her, were homophobic and tried to ruin her and she kept up these appearances, maybe to survive may be to say to them hey no I’m just like you but then that contradicts the brave person she is so I just have to accept Anne being a conservative. Anne presents as a complicated person, but one who if possible, politically, would wear blue ( the color for the political right in the UK) if she didn’t wear black.
Anne Lister gaslit and girl bossed, and also was not very kind to her Miss Walker.
Listen, can we overlook the unethical landlord situation? no? Okay fine. But Anne accomplished many great things, but there is one thing that bothered me, she has also been titled the first modern-day lesbian… but was she? Is there evidence of a lesbian other than Anne Lister before 1869?
Stay on the lookout for part 2!
-C
Was she a hero of Ayn Rand’s ?