John Lister was an English merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons

House of Commons of England

The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was replaced by the House of Commons of Great Britain...

 variously between 1621 and 1640.

Lister was the son of John Lister

John Lister (died 1616)

John Lister was an English lead merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1601Lister was a lead merchant of Hull and in about 1590 he purchased a plot of land on the High Street overlooking the River Hull. He was a member of Hull Corporation and became an alderman and was mayor...

, a lead merchant of Hull who was mayor and MP for the town. Lister succeeded his father and became mayor of Hull in 1618 and was elected Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Kingston upon Hull (Hull)

Kingston upon Hull (UK Parliament constituency)

Kingston upon Hull, often simply referred to as Hull, was a parliamentary constituency in Yorkshire, electing two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, from 1305 until 1885...

 in 1621. He was re-elected in subsequent elections until King Charles I decided to rule without parliament in 1629. In 1629 Lister was again mayor of Hull and was knighted in 1632. In 1639 Lister entertained King Charles to a sumptuous dinner at his house in High Street.

In April 1640, Lister was re-elected MP for Hull in the Short Parliament

Short Parliament

The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that sat from 13 April to 5 May 1640 during the reign of King Charles I of England, so called because it lasted only three weeks....

 and was re-elected in November 1640 for the Long Parliament

Long Parliament

The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...

. However he died in December.

Lister funded an hospital, which opened in 1641, for twelve elderly people, with rooms for a lecturer.

The house of the Lister family is now a museum known as the Wilberforce House

Wilberforce House

Wilberforce House is the birth place of William Wilberforce, the famous abolitionist, and is located in High Street, Kingston upon Hull, England. Like the nearby Blaydes House and Maister House, it was formerly a Merchant's house with access to quayside on the River Hull...

Museum.