Fruity pastels
Hall of secrets... John Vincent sketches out the story of the real-life Gentleman Jack’s clandestine trysts in 19th century West Yorkshire.
You may have seen Suranne Jones as Anne Lister striding with manly gait through the West Yorkshire countryside and into the family home of Shibden Hall, near Halifax, in the BBC historical drama series Gentleman Jack. One of the millions glued to the adventures of the landowner-industrialist and her dangerous courtship of shy heiress Ann Walker (Sophie Rundle) was Ilkley-born artist David Greenwood. He became hooked on the story and, living close to Shibden, was able to visit the place frequently to soak up the atmosphere.
The result is an archive of 20-odd Impressionist portraits of the show’s stars at Kentmere House Gallery in York until at least July 3, with prices ranging from £150-£200 for unframed charcoal drawings and £400-£600 for framed pastels.
Set in 1832, Gentleman Jack is based on the voluminous diaries of Anne Lister (1791-1840), written largely in secret code, documenting a lifetime of lesbian relationships. The historic Shibden estate belonged to the Lister family of wealthy mill owners and cloth merchants from 1615-1926. Anne, described as the “first modern lesbian due to her love of the fairer sex”, remains its most famous resident. Nowadays the hall, with its Tutor halftimbered frontage, is open to visitors but is still a home that Anne would recognise. Anne, sole owner after the death of her aunt, commissioned York architect John Harper and landscape gardener Samuel Gray in 1830 to make extensive improvements to house and grounds. A gothic tower was built and terraced gardens, rock gardens, cascades and a boating lake vastly improved the park. A “Paisley shawl” garden designed for the terrace by landscape gardener Joshua Major was added in the 1850s.
The diaries of Anne, a successful entrepreneur and landowner, run to four million words and chronicle her many sexual affairs with women of the gentry and aristocracy. Her first sexual relationship came in her teens, while a boarder at King’s Manor School in York.
Anne had several affairs by her 20s, including with the love of her life, doctor’s daughter Mariana Belcombe (1790-1868), although their hopes of living together
were never realised. In her diaries, Anne disguised their most passionate moments with the word “kisses” or by a cross in the margin. In 1821, she wrote: “I love, & only love, the fairer sex & thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any other love than theirs.” She increasingly adopted dark, masculine-appearing clothes and “gentlemanly” manners towards women.
Anne’s wealth and class enabled her to live life, to a certain extent, on her own terms. But she was careful to maintain appearances in an age when there was no polite language to name or directly censure same-sex partnerships. In 1834 Anne and Ann were nominally married in Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York, but their partnership was not to last. Anne Lister died in 1840, aged 49, from a fever caught while travelling with Ann Walker in Russia. Ann brought her body back home to be buried in what is now Halifax Minster.
Ann died in 1854 and the estate returned to the Lister family, who donated it to Halifax Corporation in 1933, and the hall became a museum the following year. Visitor numbers have tripled since Gentleman Jack was filmed.