Gender, authority and mining in an industrial landscape: Anne Lister 1791-1840

History Workshop Journal

Volumn 42, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 58-86

  Liddington, Jill ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 26044457715     PISSN: 13633554     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/hwj/1996.42.59     Document Type: Review

References (104)

1. Maxine Berg, 'What Difference did Women's Work make to the Industrial Revolution?', History Workshop Journal 35, Spring 1993;
2. also Berg, 'Women's Work & the Industrial Revolution' Refresh, 12, spring 1991.
3. Wendy Gambler, 'Women in business: a problem of historical interpretation', paper given at the Women in Business workshop, Economic History Society Women's Committee, November 1995.
4. Pat Hudson, 'Proto-industrialisation: the case of the West Riding Wool Textile Industry in the 18th and 19th centuries', History Workshop Journal, 12, Autumn 1981, p. 57.
5. David Spring, 'The English Landed Estate in the Age of Coal and Iron: 1830-1880', Journal of Economic History, 11, 1951, p. 4.
6. J. T. Ward, 'West Riding landowners and mining in the nineteenth century', in J. Benson & R. G. Neville (eds), Studies in the Yorkshire Coal Industry, Manchester, 1976, pp. 49-50 & 54-7.
7. Though note W. P. Hartley, 'The Development of Coal Mining in the Heavy Woollen District of West Yorkshire during the nineteenth century', Journal of Regional & Local Studies, 14:1, Autumn 1994.
8. Also John Goodchild, The Coal Kings of Yorkshire, Wakefield Historical Publications, 1978, about the Fentons.
9. Helena Whitbread (ed.), I Know My Own Heart: the Diaries of Anne Lister 1791-1840, London, 1988, for the years 1817-1824.
10. Also, Helena Whitbread (ed.), No Priest but Love: The Journals of Anne Lister from 1824-1826, Otley, 1992.
11. Jill Liddington, 'Anne Lister of Shibden Hall, Halifax (1791-1840): Her Diaries and the Historians', History Workshop Journal, 35, Spring 1993, pp. 50-7 on Phyllis Ramsden, Vivien Ingham and John Lister. Cat Euler's doctoral thesis will also add to this literature.
12. 'Inheritance', pp. 266-7; also p. 261 for West Riding acreage & gentry status.
13. See Martha Vicinus, 'Lesbian History: all theory & no facts or all facts & no theory?', Radical History Review, 60, 1994, pp. 57-75, especially pp. 66-7 on the taking to task 'those historians who complacently ignore the lesbian'.
14. The recentring of mining histories by labour historians recently should also be noted; see for instance David Gilbert, 'Imagined Communities & Mining Communities', report on 1994 Labour History Society conference, Labour History Review, 60:2, Autumn 1995, p. 52.
15. Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle-class 1780-1850, London, 1987, pp. 219, 274-86 & 311-2.
16. Revel Guest & Angela V. John, Lady Charlotte: a biography of the nineteenth century, London, 1989, pp. 123 & 130. On her husband's death in 1852, she took on management responsibility, dealing with the local ironmasters and with industrial conflict.
17. Amanda Vickery, 'Golden Age to Separate Spheres? A Review of the Categories and Chronology of English Women's History', The Historical Journal, 36:2, 1993, pp. 395-7, 401 & 413.
18. Jane Rendall, Women in an Industrializing Society: England 1750-1830, Oxford, 1990, pp. 8-9.
19. Maxine Berg, 'Women's Property and the Industrial Revolution', Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 24:2, Autumn 1993.
20. Vickery, 'Golden Age', p. 405;
21. Jane Humphries,'"Lurking in the Wings . . .": Women in the Historiography of the Industrial Revolution', Business and Economic History, 20, 1991, pp. 41-2;
22. Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson, 'Rehabilitating the Industrial Revolution', Economic History Review, 1992;
23. Pamela Sharpe, 'Continuity and change: women's history and economic history in Britain', Economic History Review, 48:2, 1995, provides a summary of these debates.
24. SH:2/M/4, 'Section of the Shibden Hall Colliery near Halifax', cross-section. [The Shibden beds were slightly narrower than elsewhere in Halifax.]
25. Daniel Defoe, A Tour through England and Wales, London, 1927, vol. 2, pp. 193-5.
26. John Lister, 'Coal Mining in Halifax', Old Yorkshire, London & Leeds, 1885, p. 269-70.
27. Also W. B. Trigg, 'The Shibden Hall Pits', THAS, 1930, Part II, p. 133.
28. Trigg, 'Early Mining', Part I, pp. 118-21, &
29. 'Coalfield', Part II, p. 134;
30. Lister, 'Coal Mining', p. 280. Northowram township provided particular legal grist, compared to Southowram.
31. Lister, 'Coal Mining', p. 281;
32. Trigg, 'Coalfield', p. 148.
33. Charles Clegg, 'Turnpikes & tollbars', THAS, 1915, p. 349.
34. Benson & Neville, p. 26;
35. Lister, 'Coal Mining', p. 281-2;
36. Trigg, 'Shibden Hall Pits', p. 126, 148 & 155.
37. The exception was widowed Dorothy Lister who soon remarried.
38. Despite right as landowner eg SH:2/SHE/SM/1799.
39. F. M. L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century, London, 1963, p. 264-6, suggests some landowners had begun this in the late C18th and the trend was certainly apparent by 1830 at the latest.
40. SH:2/CM:1814/1 & 2.
41. Factory Enquiry Commission, Supplementary Report of the Central Board, Part II, 1834, for instance Naylor's cotton-spinning factory (from 1800s) with 2 steam engines, employing 326 people.
42. Trigg, 'Shibden Hall Pits', p. 156; SH:2/CM:1824.
43. Whitbread, No Priest, p. 205; SH:6/ML/AC/10, p. 39, 5.7.1826.
44. John Lister, HG, LXVII, 14.4 & 13.11.1828;
45. see also Liddington, 'Diaries', p. 51
46. ; & 'Inheritance', p. 264.
47. John Lister, HG, LXVII, 30.9 & 13.11.1828.
48. John Lister, HG, XXXI, 13.9.1819;
49. Muriel Green, 'Spirited Yorkshirewoman: the Letters of Anne Lister of Shibden Hall, Halifax', Library Association dissertation, 1938, pp. 324, 330 & 335, 14.10.1828-11.3.1829.
50. John Smail, The Origins of Middle-Class Culture: Halifax, Yorkshire, 1660-1780, Ithaca, 1994, pp. 169-75 suggests that, within the local commercial élite, from c1750 even widows were less likely to be involved in running a business.
51. SH:2/CM/1831/1 & 2; this conveyance document is particularly complex.
52. AL, 22.2.1833; see also endnote 3.
53. In the 1834 Factory Enquiry Commission Report, of the 296 Yorkshire mill-owners responding, only two women are listed - both involved in small rural concerns. Another rare local example was Rachel Leach who built a water-powered cotton spinning mill in Keighley; she was recalled by an aged ex-employee as 'a bold and masculine sort of woman'; the mill was run by a male manager, & Leach sold the mill c.1800; I am extremely grateful to Gill Cookson for this reference.
54. AL, 4.1.1833; Anne also retained some interest in a small wire mill on the edge of her estate, and in roads. But ironically road and canal activity were less open to her than mining, involving as they did formal meetings at which she would have been a lone woman.
55. John Lister, HG, LXXXIII, 21.7.1832.
56. John Lister, HG, LXXXIII, 9 & 22.9.1832; she also learnt that 'the colliers mean to turn out for an advance' i.e. strike for wages.
57. AL, 26.2 & 11.7.1835; he married in 1807 and was widowed in 1836, so the reference is mysterious.
58. Muriel Green, 'A Spirited Yorkshirewoman', pp. 436-7; SH:7/ML/634, 30.11 & 1.12.1832; RAM:67, 13.11.1832.
59. AL, 23-29.12.1832.
60. AL, 22.2.1833.
61. AL, 4.1.1833.
62. Children's Employment, p. 14.
63. AL, 3.5.1833.
64. Example taken from SH:2/SHE/SM/1833, lease to Thomas Greenwood for Park Farm, 30.1.1833.
65. See Liddington, 'Inheritance', p. 269.
66. AL, 14 & 16.9.1834 & 17.10.1834.
67. AL, 23 & 24.11.1834.
68. AL, 14.1.1835.
69. AL, 22.1.1835 & 10.6.1835; SH:7/ML/AC/25.
70. AL, 22.8.1835;
71. Halifax Guardian, 29.8.1835.
72. AL, 18.12.1835.
73. 1841 census, Southowram township, Enumeration District 3.
74. AL, 13 & 27.3.1836. Thanks to Cat Euler for informing me of a reference to the effigy story in the PRO.
75. AL, 29 & 30.3.1836.
76. AL, 16.4.1836.
77. AL, 20.4.1836. In 1833 three Peak District lead miners had suffocated from sulphurous fumes, and in 1834, 24 men were tried at Derby Assizes, but were acquitted; I am most grateful to Mike Cresswell for this legal reference.
78. See Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, chapter 10 on the public sphere (e.g. freemasonry and the opportunity for display of masculine virtue at masonic funerals). The comparison is of course with heterosexual men: see below note 83.
79. AL, 1.10.1836;
80. John Lister HG, CV, 14.4.1838 ;
81. Muriel Green, 'A Spirited Yorkshirewoman', p. 506, 2.12.1838.
82. SH:7/ML/AC/28, 9 & 17.1.1837.
83. AL, 4 & 8.10.1836 & 9 & 27.12.1836; SH:7/7/ML/AC/28, 26.12.1836 ff..
84. AL, 29.12.1836.
85. SH:7/ML/AC/28, 4.3.1837.
86. AL, 27.5.1837.
87. AL, 3.1.1837.
88. AL, 3 & 4.1.1837, 29.6.1837 & 3.7.1837. In fact, Anne's coded diary reveals that, with her Ann Walker relationship deteriorating, she was interested in a smaller-scale agreement for Rawson's 'low bed loose'.
89. SH:7/ML/AC/29-32 are 'private day books' mainly concerning travelling expenses.
90. John Lister, HG, CV, 20 & 21.4.1838.
91. Chancery Masters' Exhibits (C106/60), PRO, 13 & 29.5.1839.
92. SH:7/ML/1096, 10.8.1839 & SH:7/ML/1092, 17.12.1839; Listerwick wages were about £10 a week, as was 'cash received'.
93. Liddington,'Inheritance', pp. 270-1.
94. MAC:73/2, 28.11.1842; CN:99/3, 1.5.1843.
95. SH:2/CMA/3; FW:120/51; SH:3/LAW/41/3; SH:2/CM/1854 etc..
96. SH:2/SHE/8 & 21; SH:3/L/93.
97. Children's Employment, p. 54.
98. Children's Employment, pp. 26 & 183; also 38, 40, 80 & 155.
99. Children's Employment, p. 130.
100. C106/60, 25.9.1841. Elderly people locally still recall stories of a child's skeleton being discovered.
101. Halifax Guardian, 21.5.1842, pp. 4 & 5.
102. Porritt, 'The Rawson Family', THAS, 1966, 32.
103. Ann Walker had a different business style, as is clear from the letters written back to David Booth from Russia.
104. It may be helpful to use the term proto-industrialization for this particular era of mining history.