SOME ESSEX DOCTORS.
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stock, country born and bred, and Yorkshire stock at that.
Genealogical researches into the family history seem to point
to Bingley in Yorkshire as the district from which they sprang.
Certain it is that in 1705 Thomas Lister, maltster and farmer,
married one of his own name in the person of Hannah Lister,
daughter of a yeoman, and this couple became the great-great
grandparents of Lord Lister. Dr. Cuthbert Dukes says, "these
"two joined the Society of Friends and founded a family
"which remained. Quaker for generations, a family which
"could not help but rise in the world eventually. Plainness
"and sobriety of living, earnestness of purpose, and the
"meticulous employment of spare time in worthy pursuits,
"together with a complete withdrawal from participation in
"what were regarded as wordly and wicked amusements,
"enabled its members to prosper not only in business, but
"also in the development of those artistic accomplishments
"and mental attainments which distinguish the cultivated
"from the ignorant." Sighing for larger worlds to conquer,
their eldest son, Joseph, left the paternal home about 1720
and made his way to London, where he established himself
as a tobacconist in Aldersgate Street. His youngest son,
John, born in 1737, was apprenticed, in accordance with the
custom of the time, to a watchmaker, and when his apprentice-
ship was concluded began business on his own account in that
trade in Bell Alley, Lombard Street. It is noticeable that
both father and son followed their calling, probably residing
over their business premises, in the near neighbourhood of well-
known Quaker meeting houses, the father in Aldersgate Street,
and the son in close proximity to that in Gracechurch Street
which has already been mentioned in connection with Dr.
Fothergill. John conducted his business as a watchmaker for
seven years, from 1759 to 1766, relinquishing it to take over the
tobacco merchant's business of his father, which he continued for
three years, when he gave it up to take over his father-in-law,
Stephen Jackson's, business as a wine merchant in Lothbury.
John Lister was a notable man, a citizen of London, and a
freeman of the Bakers' Company, the entry in the admission
register of that Company reading:—
"4th February, 1760. This day John Lister, son of
"Joseph Lister of London, tobacconist, who was bound