Anne Lister and Elizabeth Wadsworth.

This picture I took from Google Earth

It is always fun to search on Google Earth and then suddenly, yes, there it is

The Law Hill estate [outside Halifax, where Emily Brontë was teaching in 1838] had a contemporary neighbour of equal notoriety and interest: the heiress, Anne Lister, who lived at Shibden Hall with her lover, Ann Walker, in a lesbian relationship, the nature and ardour of which were only made widely known in the 20th century when Lister’s remarkable diaries were decoded and published. Local gossips would not have needed the evidence of a diary to confirm what was going on at Shibden Hall, though. Lister’s masculine style was so pronounced that one of her lovers, Marianna Lawton, used to be ashamed to be seen in public with her, and her nickname in Halifax was ‘Gentleman Jack.’ “You do not know what is said of your friend!” a tipsy well-wisher once warned Marianna. But she did, and Elizabeth Patchett [Emily Brontë’s boss] surely did too. It would have been strange if Emily Brontë had not met Anne Lister sometime in her seven-month sojourn next door, and it is interesting that Emily’s time at Law Hill, high on the moors, gave her both stories of bitter past rivalries prosecuted over generations, and an understanding of a wild, passionate and very unconventional erotic force [which Emily would later use as inspiration for writing 'Wuthering Heights’]

~ Charlotte Brontë: A Life // Claire Harman beau--brummell

losthouses/in-search-of-high-sunderland-and-wuthering-height

During the time Anne Lister lived at Shibden Hall

Elizabeth Wadsworth 

lived at Holdsworth House, just three miles away

Holdsworthhouse

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Wadsworth was older than Lister (closer in age to Lister’s aunt Anne and uncle James with whom Lister lived). Wadsworth was a descended from a wealthy Halifax family and educated at the same school as Lister, The Manor in York. Wadsworth kept diaries covering the same period as Lister and it’s these diaries (held on deposit at West Yorkshire Archive Services) that have recently unearthed Wadsworth’s connections to the Lister family, as well as the Brontes of nearby.Through her connections in the church and her charity work, Wadsworth’s diaries disclose connections with ‘Mr Brunty’ (Reverend Patrick Bronte) and Dorothy Wordsworth (sister of poet William). yorkshire/anne-lister

The early 1800s was a time of great army captains like Wellington and Lord Nelson (and of course a Duke of Wellington’s Regiment was based in Halifax). Elizabeth Wadsworth makes references to these great names in her daily observations of the news. Other names interwoven in Miss Wadsworth’s life include Dorothy Wordsworth who lived in Halifax (the sister of poet William Wordsworth) with whom she drank tea on occasions. Through her links with the churches in Bradford and Haworth, Miss Wadsworth was acquainted with Patrick Bronte and his wife Maria, parents of Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Bramwell. holdsworthhouse

Anne Lister of Shibden Hall

 was a wealthy landowner of similar social standing to Miss Wadsworth. 

Lister was a more prolific diarist and became posthumously famous because parts of her lengthy diaries were in secret code. The code, once deciphered, revealed a number of Anne Lister’s lesbian love interests, which were considered shocking at the time. Anne Lister has since been the subject of a number of TV dramas, the latest BBC One/HBO costume drama Gentleman Jack airs spring 2019.