Joseph Jackson Lister

Joseph Jackson Lister
Joseph Jackson Lister
Born	11 January 1786 London
Died	24 October 1869 (1869-10-25) (aged 83) Upton, Essex
Residence	England
Nationality	British
Fields	Opticist and physicist
Known for	Development of the optical microscope.

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

In 1705, Thomas Lister, a farmer and maltster, of Bingley, Yorkshire, England, married Hannah, the daughter of a Yeoman. They joined the Society of Friends, becoming Quakers, as were most of their descendants. They had a son, Joseph, who left Yorkshire in about 1720 to become a tobacconist in Aldersgate Street, London.

Joseph’s youngest son, christened John, was born in 1737. He was apprenticed to a watchmaker, Isaac Rogers in 1752, and followed that trade on his own account in Bell Alley, Lombard Street from 1759 to 1766. He then took over his father’s tobacco business, but gave it up in 1769 in favour of his father-in-law Stephen Jackson’s business as a wine-merchant in Lothbury.

John Lister was made a 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.

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. She was then 26, and he was 32. After their marriage, they lived for three years at Tokenhouse Yard, where his wine business was carried on, then for four years at Stoke Newington. In 1821 Lister invested in a trading ship commanded by his brother-in-law.