Series 1: Episode Two
The Real Diaries of Anne Lister
Gentleman Jack is based on the real diaries of Anne Lister, who sometimes wrote in code to disguise her innermost thoughts.
Here we have selected extracts from the diary and explain how they feature in the episode.
In Anne's Diary: 17th August 1832
Anne writes...
Earlier in the diary entry
Called en passant on Miss Walker of Lidgate and sat with her tete a tete from 10 to 1!
In playing with it, foolishly broke a pretty ivory book knife Miss Catherine Rawson had given her, very sorry.
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Miss W behaved very well about it.
Said my great consolation was that it would be a good excuse for my giving her one some day from Paris, which I hoped she would value as much as the one destroyed.
‘Yes!’ she should value it more.
Thought I, ‘she little dreams what is in my head. To make up to her. She has money and this might make up for rank’. We get on very well so far.
Anne and Ann Walker
Here we see the beginning of Anne Lister’s courtship of Ann Walker.
Anne called frequently on Ann during the summer of 1832. A social call between respectable landed ladies – so far so conventional – but Anne’s inner thoughts tell a different story!
By August she had already made up her mind to pursue a relationship with her wealthy and eligible neighbour. In Episode Two we see this very drawing room scene in which Anne breaks Ann’s book knife, and uses the excuse to make a romantic gift to Ann.
In Anne's Diary: 19th July 1832
Mr Jeremiah Rawson came at 11 ½ for 25 minutes. Asked what I would take for my coal… The price frightened him.
In Anne's Diary: 24th December 1832
Mr Jeremiah Rawson came at 9.05. Kept him waiting ten minutes and went down at 9 ¼ and had him ¼ or 20 minutes.
Had the coal plan… Still maintained the coal would cost them getting sixpence a corve and there would only be 4 corves per square yard.
Said that the collier should have as much as the landlord i.e. Messrs Rawson and I ought to divide equally the profit.
All the terms before proposed agreed to, I conclude as no objection was made.
Thus has ended the tiresome business, though I shall not feel myself secure from pother until all is signed and sealed…
Mr R said he was never beaten but by ladies and I had beaten him.
Said I gravely ‘is the intellectual part of us that makes a bargain, and that has no sex, or ought have none.’
Anne and the Rawsons
In Episode Two we see Anne begin negotiating with the Rawson brothers over her coal.
Here, she presents her meticulously calculated price to Jeremiah Rawson for the first time. He and Christopher were to find her tougher to deal with than they had accounted for.
The complex negotiations rolled on for many months and exposed the Rawsons' reliance on dirty tactics beneath ground. Luckily, Anne was a match for them:
Learn more
Anne Lister’s diaries – along with other items that belonged to her – are kept at the Calderdale Archives in Halifax.
Visit their website to find out more, and practice your mastery of Anne’s code on high-resolution digitised scans of every page.
