York Georgian Society is dedicated to the study and appreciation of our Georgian history, including notable figures, historical buildings, as well as surviving objects and paintings that afford a glimpse into York's rich eighteenth-century past.
Anne Lister
Anne Lister was born in 1791 to a minor landowning family in Calderdale, West Riding of Yorkshire. She attended school at King's Manor in York, and later (secretly) married Ann Walker in Holy Trinity Church on Goodramgate.
She is commonly referred to as the 'first modern lesbian' for her numerous affairs with women throughout her life, the details of which survive in her diaries. She travelled extensively, and took over from her father as a landowner. She died in 1840 at the age of 49.
The Red House was built in 1714 for Sir William Robinson MP, on what was then known as Lop Lane.
Following the Great Fire of London in 1666, the government ruled that new houses should be built from brick or stone. The Red House was one of the earlier houses to be built of brick in York, and was the start of a major building revolution in York.
Between 1740-71, The Red House was the residence of Dr John Burton, who wrote An Essay towards a Complete System of Midwifery (1751). It's reputed that Dr Burton was the inspiration for the man-midwife, Dr Slop, in Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759), described in the novel as
"...A little squat, uncourtly figure ... of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipediality of belly, which might have done honour to a serjeant in the horse-guards."
The Red House, then, is far more elegant than the caricature of its former owner!
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