| Abstract: | The Lister family of Gisburn, created Lords Ribblesdale in 1797, is an example of a family with yeoman or minor gentry status in the sixteenth century who, by the persistent purchase of land and a number of fortunate marriages, established themselves amongst the county gentry in the eighteenth century. They also acquired a share in the pocket borough of Clitheroe and served in the House of Commons continuously from 1718 to 1780. The paper describes the ways in which successive Listers fashioned the image of the family through their education, engagement in politics (where they were at the least Tories and possibly Jacobites), by their erection of a new house (Gisburne Park) in the decade after 1727 and the creation of a parkland landscape to surround it. This is explored through the surviving documentary materials (which are not exhaustive, but include reflections by Thomas Lister (d. 1745) on his political creed), by the house and landscape of the park and an abortive scheme for the park, but above all through the art they commissioned and the representations of landscape that it contains. Pictures attributed to Robert Griffier, Peter Tillemans and Arthur Devis, all formerly at Gisburne Park, and an engraving by François Vivares of Malham Cove, are discussed. |
