Gentleman Jack: Sally Wainwright funds PhD scholarship to study Anne Lister's diaries

Sally Wainwright on the Red Carpet in the Piece Hall, Halifax, for the Premier Screening of th next series of Gentleman Jack.
29 March 2022. Picture Bruce Rollinson — Sally Wainwright on the Red Carpet in the Piece Hall, Halifax, for the Premier Screening of th next series of Gentleman Jack. 29 March 2022. Picture Bruce Rollinson

She’s been the subject of endless fascination since a TV series depicted her life as the "the first modern lesbian".

Anne Lister, who was the inspiration for the BBC series Gentleman Jack, is now the subject of a new PhD scholarship, funded by Sally Wainwright.

The Gentleman Jack, Happy Valley and Last Tango creator hopes the University of York scholarship will help place Lister’s diaries – which run to 5m words over 26 volumes - “firmly within the canon of English literature”.

Written from 1806 to Lister’s death in 1840, the diaries cover subjects as diverse as engineering calculations, legal issues, relations with tenants, scientific and medical advances of the time, theology and political unrest.

They detail – often in code – her romantic and sexual liaisons with women. Lister also wrote 14 volumes of travel notes, covering trips throughout the UK and Europe.

The Sally Wainwright PhD scholarship is intended to foster further research on Lister’s life and writing. Much of her writing has yet to be explored in detail.

The successful student will have full access to the Lister diaries and other writings, currently held in the West Yorkshire archives in her native Halifax.

Ms Wainwright said: “Anne Lister’s diaries and other writings are a unique, fascinating, vast resource, lending themselves to study across a number of academic disciplines.

"Anne Lister was a profoundly clever and unusual woman whose writings need much greater analysis than they have yet received.”

Professor Helen Smith, from the University of York, said: “Anne Lister is a fascinating, but little-studied literary figure, and this scholarship, generously funded by Dr Sally Wainwright, will shed new light on her life, historical significance and writings.

"We hope that the successful PhD candidate will help us understand more about Anne Lister as a writer, and bring her incredible writings to new audiences.”

The scholarship offers full tuition fees at the UK home rate along with an annual stipend of £20,000 for three years, as well as a small sum for research expenses. It is open to both home and international students.

Applications close on January 18.