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The National Archives on Anne Lister

29 replies

newrubylane · 10/06/2025 14:20

I encountered this post by the National Archives on LinkedIn today (see picture).

The linked article can be found here:

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/stories/anne-lister-and-ann-walkers-archival-legacy/

Anne Lister is referred to as 'they' throughout the LinkedIn post, in spite of the fact that the article clearly states that she used female pronouns. It also says that she was a lesbian, and part of a group of women in same sex relationships. On further inspection, the article itself also manages to completely avoid using 'she' or 'her' to refer to Ann Lister, although it is happy to do so for Ann Walker. I find this troubling. Can a historical woman not simply challenge gender norms and yet stil be 'she'? The West Yorkshire Archive Service blog, happily seems able to do so, so why not TNA?

Anne Lister and Ann Walker's archival legacy

Anne Lister and Ann Walker's romantic relationship defied societal norms of their time, as we can encounter through the archival material they left behind.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/stories/anne-lister-and-ann-walkers-archival-legacy

OP posts:
Keenovay · 16/07/2025 16:00

Copperas · 15/07/2025 21:49

I went to read this after reading the comments. Maybe I am missing something but it seemed to me to be about Anne and Ann and their relationship- so they, their and them are just being used to indicate the two women? Mind you this not what the archives response said.

Female pronouns are used for Anne Walker (Lister's lover) but the author strenuously avoids female pronouns for Anne Lister; indeed avoids any single person pronouns, resulting in awkward sentences like:

"This stipulation was also recorded in previous versions of Lister’s will relating to other partners and family members. Many of Lister’s former lovers had married, and Lister’s desire to protect Shibden Hall was clear."

Her womanhood and lesbianism are downplayed and erased, and we're invited to view her as something she didn't identify with herself. There's no justification for this - Anne used female pronouns to refer to herself in her private diaries. It's only to support a vague timey-wimey "trans/non-binary people have always existed" narrative but her story's fascinating enough without that.

Beaconsfire · 16/07/2025 16:49

This is bananas, if she referred to herself as she, who TF does NA think they are, not going along with that fairly uncontroversial line?
"She referred to herself as Empress Hippo in her diaries but she was human and not an empress so we're not going to refer to her as that,", ok fair, but in this case, she WAS a woman, she referred to herself as SHE, what.is.their.problem?!

MarieDeGournay · 16/07/2025 16:53

Copperas · 15/07/2025 21:49

I went to read this after reading the comments. Maybe I am missing something but it seemed to me to be about Anne and Ann and their relationship- so they, their and them are just being used to indicate the two women? Mind you this not what the archives response said.

I think you're right! Shame on me for not checking before posting, as they do use 'she' and 'her'. Mea culpa.

Mind you I feel a bit better realising that whoever at NA wrote that reply hasn't read it properly either!Smile

KateBAnd3 · 16/07/2025 22:14

WinterTrees · 10/06/2025 14:40

I find the anachronistic imposition of modern attitudes and values onto historical figures infuriating, to put it mildly.

If Anne Lister had been male she wouldn't have faced any of the challenges of inheritance and homophobia she so courageously overcame. Hers would have been a non-story. If the nonsense of non-binary had been a thing in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century she could have stuck her pronouns on the bottom of her letters and had a tantrum if people got them wrong. That wasn't what happened. She was a woman who loved other women in a time when that was socially unacceptable. Why would anyone want to obscure that fact?

I wholeheartedly agree. I work at a sixth form college and noticed a poster in one of the rooms where they usually hold the LGBTQ+ sessions doing something similar with regards to James Barry / Margaret Bulkley (claiming she was a trans man, when in fact she had to pretend to be male in order to work as a surgeon at that time). I took it down.

It offends me on so many levels, not least because this rewriting of history erases the discrimination that women have faced.

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