Wax Seals & Stamps

Anne Lister was a dedicated letter writer as were many of her friends.

Sealing wax has clsoed letters since the Middle Ages, whether melted directly onto the page or attached as a pendant seal. Once it hardened, there was no quiet way to open it. Any tampering left a mark, which is exactly why it worked: a letter sealed in one place and opened in another carried proof, the whole way, that no one had looked at it in between. Frequently, the stamps pressed into that wax usually carried its owner's mark (someimtes initials, a coat of arms, or other significant emblem) validating a letter, and discouraging forgery.

Anne collected stamps throughout her life and gave just as many away, putting them to work across everything from business correspondence to letters meant for no one but a close friend. Her journal even tracks the process behind choosing them: the mottos she weighed, the materials she picked for the carving.

A few of her stamps stand out. One carried the Lister coat of arms. Another showed a new moon rising over the sea with the motto "Si je te perds, je suis perdu" (If I lose you, I am lost). One of the oldest in her collection was a gift from her mother, Rebecca Lister, a pelican feeding her young, etched right down to the nest.

She commissioned others as gifts, too. For Sibbella Maclean, a violet flower cut into amethyst, with the motto "Il faut me chercher" (I must be sought). For Ann Walker, a bloodstone carving with "Foi est tout" (Faith is everything) cut in block letters across a scroll.

Sealing a letter meant heating a stick of wax over a candle or lamp until it dripped or could be spread onto the paper, then pressing a stamp into it while it was still soft.

Seals ranged from royal and civic use down to the private, everyday kind, and their shape, size, and color could say something about the letter itself. Black wax is the clearest example. Anne's journal and the historical record both show black wax and black-edged paper used during mourning, sometimes explicitly as a way of acknowledging the recipient's own grief.

Open flame near delicate paper is risky, and by the 19th century, wafer seals offered a safer alternative. Made from wheat flour worked into a thin paste and heated until it hardened into something close to a sticker, wafers couldn't match the look of wax. But they weighed less, which meant lower postage, and that made them especially popular in Paris.

It's worth noting that not everyone in Anne's circle treated their seals with the same care she gave hers. She was consistent about it, and she wrote plainly about how much thought went into her paper, her wax color, her choice of seal. Her correspondents weren't always so careful.

There are examples that suggest Ann Walker, reached for whatever seal was closest at times. During her time in Scotland in 1833, she sealed some of her letters with Captain George Mackay Sutherland's own seal, which carried his coat of arms, a cat, and the clan motto "Sans Peur" (Without fear). Later, at Shibden Hall, she often used Anne's seals instead of her own, even though she had plenty to choose from.

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All information in this spreadsheet is in English, but please preserve the names of the people as written by Anne Lister and others.

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