Anne Lister's Education

Steph GallawayPublished on 21 December, 2020 · Last updated on 29 June, 2023
 Cover photo: ilovechile-travel 

Anne Lister was passionate about learning.

With utmost seriousness, she meticulously oversaw the management of her education, consistently striving to enhance her capabilities. While her formal education at King's Manor School in York laid a foundation, Anne actively sought opportunities for continued education. She regularly attended lectures, availed herself of private lessons, and adhered to a disciplined routine of self-study throughout her lifetime.

Anne's intellectual curiosity knew no bounds, spanning a vast spectrum of subjects that encompassed disciplines such as gardening, mineralogy, physics, and comparative anatomy. This project aims to document the tenacity and multitude of avenues Anne Lister pursued in her unceasing quest to satisfy her insatiable thirst for knowledge.

“I look forward with much pleasure to that best of all pleasures, the pursuit of knowledge – 'She is more precious than rubies; and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared to her' (proverb iii 15) … I have learned to think; and thought is pleasant when we steer it right” 


– Anne Lister, 30 October 1826

Educational experiences in Anne Lister's journal

Our goal is to collect the learning experiences Anne describes in her journal, which will allow for further analysis of her education, both self-taught and tutored.  

We invite everyone to join us in collecting these references from Anne’s journals. Because Anne was an avid reader, there will undoubtedly be some overlap with material Anne read for leisure. We also know that she had music lessons in addition to writing and practicing music of her own.  As we already have projects examining these subjects in closer detail, entries that fall into the categories of literature or performing arts should be tracked in Anne Lister's Bookshelf and Anne Lister's Performing Arts.

Reference tracker: Education

Contributors

This project is made possible through ongoing contributions from the following people:

How to contribute to this project

Tip: Don't worry about redundancy; enter any information you have and we'll reconcile duplicates later.

All information in this spreadsheet is in English, but please preserve the names of events and artists as written by Anne Lister.

Anyone can help research and add additional information for each references in this spreadsheet.

If you want to help research information about these references or help find any of these artworks, please follow the steps above and note you would like to research the entries.