Author: Lister, Thomas Henry
Biography:
LISTER, Thomas Henry (1800-42: ODNB)
He was born at the London home of his family in Grosvenor Square and baptised at St. George’s, Bloomsbury, on 6 Feb. 1800, the eldest child of Thomas Lister (d 1828) of Armitage Park, Armitage, Lichfield, Staffordshire, and his first wife Harriet Anne Seale (d 1802). He was educated at Westminster School (1814-19) and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in May 1819 (matric. 1820) but did not proceed to a degree. He was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn to study law on 14 Dec. 1821 but was not called to the bar, apparently choosing the life of a writer instead. He published three successful novels about fashionable society with Colburn and Bentley, the second dedicated by name to his father: Granby (1826), Herbert Lacy (1828), and Arlington (1832). Anne Grey (1834) is sometimes attributed to him but he was merely the “editor” on behalf of his half-sister Harriet (Lister) Cradock. His tragedy Epicharis (1829), “by the author of Granby,” was considered by the Dramatic Magazine (which gave a detailed account of the first performance) remarkable principally for the number of deaths, only two of the dramatis personae left standing after “nine executions, two suicides, one severely wounded, and afterwards killed” (204). After succeeding to his father’s estate, he married Lady Maria Theresa Villiers (1803-65); the couple had three children. As a writer he contributed reviews to ER and published a history of The Life and Administration of Edward, First Earl of Clarendon (1837-8). He held some administrative positions himself, including two commissions of inquiry into religious instruction in Ireland and Scotland, and most notably his appointment as the first registrar general for births, marriages, and deaths in England and Wales (1836-1842). It was this post that he gave as his occupation in the 1841 census, from his London home of Kent House, Knightsbridge, where he died not long afterwards, on 5 June 1842. He was buried at Kensal Green cemetery about 9 June. (ODNB 31 Dec. 2024; ancestry.com 31 Dec. 2024; findmypast.com 31 Dec. 2024; EN2; ACAD; Dramatic Magazine 1 [1829], 200-4) HJ
Other Names:
- T. H. Lister