Thomas Lister, 4th Baron Ribblesdale

Politician and huntsman.

National Gallery Trustee (1909–1924).

For a period, he was responsible for guarding the Sudanese slave trader Zubayr Pasha (1830–1913) during his incarceration on Gibraltar and seems to have liked him personally (see Zachary S. Berman, ‘Owing and Owning: Zubayr Pasha, Slavery, and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Sudan’, CUNY Academic Works [online], 2017, <https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1779> accessed 5 August 2021). In 1886, he discussed the effects of Zubayr Pasha’s detention (without trial) in the House of Lords, arguing for more favourable treatment, partly for reasons of geo-political expediency: ‘the presence of Zehehr Pasha in the Sûdan might prove valuable in the interests of Egypt and the pacification of the Sûdan provinces’ (Hansard HL Deb. vol.305 col.711, 5 April 1886 [online], <https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/1886-04-05/debates/934fc070-1776-4124-aba6-7c56ee4b88d1/ZebehrPasha%E2%80%94Resolution> accessed 5 August 2021.) He published his Conversations with Zobeir Pasha at Gibraltar in 1908.

No known connections with abolition.

Former owner: NG purchased in 1873: NG1043 (now at Tate, N01043). The full title of the painting, a landscape by James Ward, explains its connection with Lord Ribblesdale: Gordale Scar (A View of Gordale, in the Manor of East Malham in Craven, Yorkshire, the Property of Lord Ribblesdale).

Sitter: Lord Ribblesdale is the subject of a portrait by John Singer Sargent, which was presented to the NG in 1916: NG3044.

History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History, London 1964-, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/
Checked and not found — Item on publisher's website

M. Pottle, 'Lister, Thomas, fourth Baron Ribblesdale', in C. Matthew et al. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 1992-, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/49165
Checked and found — Item on publisher's website

J. Turner et al. (eds), Grove Art Online, Oxford 1998-, https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/
Checked and not found — Item on publisher's website

UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership, London 2020, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
Checked and not found — Item on publisher's website