Gay marriage has only been legal across the UK for just over two years, after legislation took effect in Northern Ireland on 13th January 2020, following behind England, Wales, and Scotland in 2014. However, the first lesbian ‘wedding’ actually took place a little short of two centuries before, when Anne Lister and Ann Walker wedded at Holy Trinity Church in York in 1834.

Of course, Lister and Walker weren’t legally married, but they considered themselves as such, and they had fulfilled the then-typical wedding traditions of taking the sacrament together and exchanging rings. They also both remade their wills so that, in the event of one of them dying, the other would inherit the deceased’s properties. Unfortunately, this did not entirely come to pass; three years after Lister’s early death, both the Lister and Walker properties came under Walker’s brother-in-law’s charge—by this point, the mentally fragile Walker had been declared a lunatic, and was incapable of overseeing the lands.

Something which has been up for debate for some time is the nature of Walker and Lister’s marriage. That is to say: was it a love match, or was it purely a marriage of convenience? The answer to this is difficult to ascertain—most of what we know about the relationship comes from Lister’s diaries, and only one of Ann Walker’s journals has been discovered. 

The journal itself is only 77 pages long, beginning in June 1834 and ending in February 1835, with a gap of two months from September to October. It covers the couple’s honeymoon in France and Switzerland, and references to Lister are usually in the form of ‘dearest’ (118 times, to be precise!). Rarely did she refer to Anne as ‘A’, and only once as ‘Miss Lister’.

Lister’s diaries are somewhat more formal with regard to her wife, calling her ‘Miss Walker’ more frequently, however she also uses ‘A’ and ‘Adney’. Lister’s diaries are more matter-of-fact in general, detailing the exacts of even her most colourful sexual encounters. 

Indeed, these details led to the diaries being discovered, de-coded, buried, and re-discovered multiple times, as only in the modern age has it become more acceptable to openly discuss queer relationships.

What is certain is that Ann Walker seemed genuinely in love with Anne Lister—it is difficult to argue the contrary, when Walker went against society and sometimes her own misgivings to marry and live with Lister. Whilst Lister had support from her family (or, at least, they did not shun her for her sexuality), Walker had none of that; her brother-in-law, Captain Sutherland, was deeply suspicious of Lister. Furthermore, Lister’s bold, uncaring temperament allowed her to shake off the whispers, whereas Walker’s mental health struggles and her more quiet (though still undoubtedly spirited) personality did not lend itself to such self-confidence.

Nevertheless, she committed to the unthinkable, and married her love, which surely speaks to the strength of not only Ann’s feelings for Lister, but of Ann herself.

Lister, on the other hand, wrote in 1832: ‘If she were fond of me and manageable, I think I could be comfortable enough with her.’

This is, perhaps, less-than romantic. When Lister in 1832, at the age of 41 settled back down at Shibden Hall, she was decided to find a marriage. She would not tolerate a marriage to a man, or a relationship with an already wedded woman—she wanted to be with a woman as a woman herself (in the past, one of Anne’s lovers had begged her to dress as a man so they could marry. Anne refused).

Lister needed the marriage to be financially advantageous—she was an ambitious woman who had several projects to complete at Shibden which she did not have the funds for. Combine that with her love of travel, and she could not manage alone.

Ann Walker was the ideal candidate for a marriage as she was wealthy and herself owned property; had either of them been a man, theirs would have been the perfect, socially-acceptable union. Yet the pair’s personalities were at total odds—when they first met in 1833, Lister was distinctly unimpressed with Walker, calling her ‘hopeless’ and ‘miserable’.

Walker was 29 when they met again, a young, wealthy, unmarried landowner. Lister was in need of money, so she began her pursuit of Walker, one that ended in success with the achievement of the marriage she had desired.

However, this is not to say that the relationship was for Lister’s financial gain only. Once married, she stopped all other affairs and took their relationship incredibly seriously. In public, Lister referred to Walker as her ‘particular friend’, and it is almost certain that she felt genuine affection for her wife—perhaps more than she had originally bargained for.

Anne Lister died on 22nd September 1840 while travelling with Walker in Russia. Walker had her body embalmed and returned to the UK, and she continued to live at Shibden Hall for a couple of years. Financial pressure had driven a wedge between the pair in the last years of their relationship, but Ann continued to think fondly of her late wife, and even tried to continue alterations to Shibden Hall which had been important to Anne, but she was denied permission.

The grief and loneliness that came with Anne’s death exacerbated Walker’s mental health struggles, and she was eventually declared of ‘unsound mind’. She was removed from Shibden Hall and placed under the care of Dr. Belcombe in York. She died on 25th February 1854 at her family’s estate in Lightcliffe, aged 50.

Sources:

• Vicinus, Martha, Intimate Friends: Women Who Loved Women, 1778-1928, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004)
• https://insearchofannwalker.com/
• https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/04/230512/anne-lister-ann-walker-marriage-true-story-gentleman-jack
• https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/19th-century-lesbian-landowner-who-set-out-find-wife-180971995/