In November 2016, screenwriter Sally Wainwright received a £30,000 screenwriting fellowship grant from the Wellcome Trust, in partnership with Film4 and the British Film Institute, to research a drama series about Anne Lister.

The series was originally provisionally titled 'Shibden Hall', after Anne Lister's ancestral home, before being renamed Gentleman Jack in July 2017.

Sally Wainwright, who grew up near Shibden Hall in Yorkshire, had wanted to write a drama based on Anne Lister for over 20 years and described her as 'a gift to a dramatist'.

The show is based on Anne Lister's real diaries, estimated at around 5 million words with about a sixth written in secret code; Helena Whitbread began decoding and transcribing them in the 1980s, and the show's production involved hundreds of thousands of words of new transcription.

Suranne Jones was cast as Anne Lister after having previously worked with Sally Wainwright on Scott & Bailey and Unforgiven, with Wainwright believing she had the 'boldness, subtlety, energy and humour' needed for the role.

Filming took place on location in Yorkshire, using real historical sites including Shibden Hall as Anne Lister's home and Sutton Park as Ann Walker's home.

Production on series two was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, pausing and resuming multiple times between October 2020 and its conclusion in October 2021; some scenes for episode six were filmed in a historic mine in the Shibden Valley near the Bare Head Tunnel.

The show's ending theme song, also titled 'Gentleman Jack', was written and performed by Yorkshire folk duo O'Hooley & Tidow and was first released in 2012, before the series existed.

HBO cancelled Gentleman Jack after two series in July 2022, at which point season two was among HBO's lowest-rated current original series by net viewership, despite critical acclaim including a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score for season two.