Pride of Place: queer women of England

Anne Seymour Damer (1748/9-1828)
Henley Bridge, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

Anne Damer was cousin to writer and politician Horace Walpole. In 1787 she inherited his remarkable Gothick home Strawberry Hill House.

In the mid-1770s Anne separated from her husband John Damer. She was rumoured to have had affairs with women. One 18th-century diarist described her as being ‘a Lady much suspected of liking her own Sex in a criminal Way.’ From 1789 she had an intense and passionate friendship with the writer Mary Berry, which continued for many years.

Following her separation, Anne had a successful career as a sculptor, and designed the keystone sculptures of Isis and Thamesis on Henley Bridge, built in 1786.

Anne Lister (1791-1840)
Shibden Hall, Shibden, Halifax, Calderdale

Anne Lister is sometimes described as ‘the first modern lesbian’.

She was a successful entrepreneur and landowner, and took over the management of the Shibden Hall estate after the death of her uncle James Lister in 1826. Follwing the death of her father and aunt, Anne inherited Shibden 1836.

Anne kept an extensive diary that was partly written in code. In it she reveals the many sexual relationships she had with women throughout her life.

Discover more about Anne Lister and Shibden Hall with Historic England

Anne Lister (1791-1840) and Ann Walker (1803-1854)
Church of Holy Trinity, York

Anne Lister wooed Ann Walker, an heiress to a merchant from nearby Lightcliffe, in the gardens at Shibden Hall.

The lovers marked and celebrated their union in a number of ways, including the giving of rings. At Easter in 1834 they attended Holy Communion at the Church of Holy Trinity in York and saw this as an act equivalent to holy matrimony.

The couple lived together at Shibden Hall. Their relationship only came to an end when Lister died in 1840 while they were travelling in Russia.

Eliza Cook (1818-1889)
Ingress Abbey, Swanscombe and Greenhithe, Kent

Eliza Cook, poet and journalist, resided for a time at Ingress Abbey, home of London Alderman James Harmer. Harmer was also owner of The Weekly Dispatch newspaper to which Cook was a long-standing contributor. She wrote some of her most famous works at Ingress Abbey, including the poem The Old Arm-Chair.

Cook advocated political and sexual freedom for women. She wore masculine clothes and her hair short, and was friend and lover of the American actress Charlotte Cushman from 1845 to 1849.

Mabel Batten (c1856-1916), Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) and Una Troubridge (1887-1963)

Mabel Batten, amateur singer and patron of the arts, was author Radcliffe Hall's first partner. Mabel influenced Radcliffe's artistic and intellectual education. After her death in 1916, Radclyffe attempted to continue their relationship through spiritual contact.

In 1918, Radcliffe set up home with Mabel's cousin, the sculptor Una Troubridge, who effectively became Radcliffe's 'wife'. The couple remained together until Radclyffe's death in 1943.

Radclyffe was laid to rest in Mabel's vault in Highgate Cemetery, London. It was planned for Una to also be laid to rest there. However, she died in Rome and was buried before her wish could be fulfilled.

Discover more about Radclyffe Hall's controversial novel 'The Well of Loneliness' with Historic England

Mary Benson (1841-1918) and Lucy Tait (1856-1938)

Mary Benson was wife of Edward Benson, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1883. They had married in 1859. Despite having six children, there appeared to be little love in their marriage.

Mary was described as a 'spiritual counsellor' to younger women, with whom she is said to have had romantic involvements. Known as 'Ben', Mary experienced guilt as well as joy in her sexual friendships with women.

One of her most significant relationships was with Lucy Tait (daughter of the previous Archbishop), who lived with Ben at Lambeth Palace, home to the Archbishops of Canterbury, and later when they moved to a house near the Sussex Downs.

Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)
HM Prison Holloway, Islington, London

Ethel Smyth was a suffragette, author and composer. Ethel became involved in the women’s movement through her friendship with suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst.

Among Ethel's compositions was March of the Women, which became the anthem of the women’s movement. When Smyth was imprisoned at Holloway in 1912, she led an impromptu rendition of March of the Women, conducted with her toothbrush.

Ethel had relationships with both men and women, and described her sexuality as an 'everlasting puzzle'. Among her companions, lovers and unrequited loves were Emmeline Pankhurst, Henry Brewster, Edith Craig, Virginia Woolf and 'Nelly' Benson, daughter of Mary Benson. Woolf, with whom Smyth became good friends, described her unrequited love as 'like being caught by a giant crab’.

Edith Craig (1869-1947)
Priest's House, Smallhythe, Tenterden, Kent

Edith (Edy) Craig, daughter of Victorian actress Ellen Terry, lived at Priest’s House in a lesbian ménage a trois. The house was situated in the grounds of Terry’s home, Smallhythe Place, in Kent.

Edy, a suffragist and theatre director, had shared a home with writer and translator Chris St John since 1899. In 1916 the artist Tony Atwood joined the household in Smallhythe. This was on Edy’s condition that: ‘If Chris does not like your being here, and feels you are interfering with our friendship, out you go!’ They lived together for the rest of their lives.

The Smallhythe trio were visited by queer artists and writers, including Virginia Woolf, Radclyffe Hall and Vita Sackville-West. Edy and her friends set up the Barn Theatre at Smallhythe, and held an annual drama festival from 1929. This attracted lectures and performances from many luminaries of the theatre world, including the queer actor John Gielgud.

Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962)
Sissinghurst Castle, Cranbrook, Kent

Poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West lived at Sissinghurst Castle, Kent, from 1932 with her husband Harold Nicolson. Both Vita and Harold had numerous same-sex affairs.

Vita briefly left Harold for writer Violet Trefusis during their affair in 1918-21. Her diaries, which gave an account of this relationship, were discovered locked in a bag in her tower study after her death, and were published as Portrait of a Marriage (1973).

The most well known of Vita’s love affairs was with the novelist Virginia Woolf. Woolf modelled her very successful book Orlando (1928) and its gender-shifting hero on her lover. Both Vita and Harold were discreet about their same-sex affairs. Their home at Sissinghurst allowed them to share a happy, queer marriage.