Joseph Jackson Lister

Wine merchant and amateur microscopist, born in London, UK. A wine merchant with an interest in optics, he developed a method of building lens systems to greatly reduce chromatic and spherical aberrations. In 1826 James Smith (d.1870) built a much improved microscope to Lister's design, and this was used a year later to produce the first competent article on histology. Lister was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1832.

Joseph Jackson Lister, FRS (January 11, 1786 - October 24, 1869) was an amateur British opticist and physicist and the father of Joseph Lister. Jan 11th 1786 – Oct 24th 1869

In 1705, Thomas Lister, a farmer and maltster, of Bingley, Yorkshire, England, married Hannah, the daughter of a Yeoman.

John Lister was made a freeman of the Bakers’ company in 1760. He married Mary in 1764, and had two daughters within three years of his marriage, then after an interval of nineteen years, in 1786, when he was 49, his wife gave birth to their only son, Joseph Jackson Lister.

John Lister wrote the following letter to his son, aged 13, at school in Rochester in 1796:

Dear Joseph,

As I often think of thee with desires that thou mayst grow up a sober industrious Lad, so am I also desirous that thou shouldst see a little of what is publishing for th’ instruction and benefit of the youth of the present Generation and adapted to the capacities and employment of many of them, I have therefore sent thee 9 books for the purpose, and I greatly desire that thy principal care may be to discharge thy duty to thy teachers, and to keep a conscience void of Offence, to thy creator from whose bounty we are suppliedwith every favour that we enjoy. But on enquiring after thee from J Vulley the Usher, I hear that he has to complain of thy being so very long in writing about 10 lines in a Copy, and learning a little spelling, that 2 1/2 hours are often taken up therewith, which I am satisfied thou might easily accomplish in one hour, so that thou hast but little time for the Latin, this has made me sorry, because an hour and a half wasted is a loss thou may have great reason to regret, as well as such a habit continued of in idling thy time must prove of bad consequence and deprive of the satisfaction of reflecting that thou hast spent thy time to the best of thy Capacity, which is both thy duty and interest. Thy Usher therefore with me concludes that the writing and spelling shall be the last, and the prime of the morning may be applied to Latin and French, and I do desire thee to be in earnest whilst in the School to apply with industry, so that by overcoming the difficulties thou may begin to taste the sweets of Learning. TheUsher desiring to borrow for thy perusal L’Henriade occasions me with sorrow to acquaint thee, that thy Cousin J. and he now lodges in an obscure Chandler’s Shop, but desire thou wilt keep this information a secret, as we hope he may mend. O my son there is nothing like doing the best thou can to please those who have the care of thy instruction and thy good at heart, so hoping I shall hear no more complaints of thee, I remain with love, joined by thy Mother and Sister.

Thy Truly Affectionate Father.

John Lister.

P.S. I think I have not been ½ an hour in writing this tho’ often interrupted and hope a word to the wise will be sufficient. We intended to have sent thee a plumb cake, had we heard a better account but shall now leave it till another time.

On leaving school in 1800, Joseph Jackson was apprenticed to his Father’s wine business in Lothbury, which was becoming a thriving and prosperous concern, and in 1804, at the age of 18 he was made a partner.

During a visit to the Quaker Ackworth school near Pontefract in 1814, he met Isabella Harris, then aged 22, the daughter of the school superintendent, also called Isabella, a widow with six children. Isabella junior taught reading and writing to the girls of the school for five years, leaving in 1818 to marry Joseph Jackson Lister.

They then bought Upton House in 1825, a spacious old Queen Anne house with fields and gardens at Upton in Essex.

Upton was then a country hamlet to the east of London, close to Hainault and Epping Forest, and the Barking marshes, and it was a pleasant country walk along the banks of the Thames into London. It was Gurney who had advised Lister to buy Upton House, and the Lister family lived in close contact with the young people growing up at Ham House.

Their children included Mary, 1820-94 who married Rickman Godlee, a barrister of the Inner Temple in 1851, John, 1822-46, Isabella Sophia, 1823-70, Joseph, 1827-1912 William Henry, 1828-59 and Arthur Hugh, 1830-1908. Joseph studied medicine, becoming a surgeon and achieving fame and a baronetcy - and later a peerage, becoming Lord Lister - for his work in antisepsis.

J.

The stand was made by an employee of Tulley, James Smith, and is preserved in the Wellcome Institute. Lister published his work in 1830 in a paper entitled ‘On Some Properties in Achromatic Object-Glasses Applicable to the Improvement of the Microscope’ submitted to the Royal Society, and collaborated with Smith and with Andrew Ross, who had established what was to become one of the finest microscope manufacturers in 1832. It was never published, but years later it was presented by his son Lord Lister to the Royal Microscopical Society, and seen to have anticipated many of the later discoveries made by Ernst Abbe and others.

Lister was deeply affected by the premature death of his son John in 1846, and thereafter appears to have given up his optical investigations.

He died aged 84 in October 1869 at home at Upton House, and was buried along with Isabella his wife, in the Friends’ Burial Ground, Stoke Newington, Middlesex.

Peter Fell.