Journal of Lister ‘ was written by her wife’

ARCHIVISTS WHO believed they were reading extracts from one of Anne Lister’s secret journals have revealed that the diary entries were actually written by her ‘ wife’ Ann Walker.

A member of a research group called In Search of Ann Walker made the discovery when examining papers collected by the Rawson family at the West Yorkshire Archive Service’s Halifax office.

The Rawsons – who appeared in the BBC period drama Gentleman Jack about the life of Anne Lister – ran a bank in Halifax.

The papers included travel journals from 1835 that had been previously been attributed to Anne Lister, as the Shibden Hall heiress’s coded diaries spanning most of her adult life were already well- known and formed the basis of the Gentleman Jack storylines.

Yet researchers spotted that a reference by the author to the death of ‘ my poor brother John’ five years earlier actually referred to John Walker. Anne Lister had also had a sibling named John, who died in 1810.

The group’s find has now been verified by archivists, who say it will allow the same- sex relationship between Lister and Walker to be studied from both women’s perspectives.

Although the Walker diary only covers a year, it includes accounts of their domestic life together at Shibden Hall and their travels in Europe during their ‘ honeymoon’ after they pledged marriage to each other.

Archivist Dan Sudron believes the fact that both women used similar notebooks could have led to the ‘ misidentification’ 10 years ago. Diane Halford, who made the find, described the journal as being in “an obscure file”. She noticed that the letter ‘ W’ was written in the way Ann Walker was known to write her own name, and then compared handwriting samples to confirm her hunch.