Ann Walker (landowner)

Their union was solemnised by taking the sacrament together on Easter Sunday in 1834 at Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York, which bears a commemorative plaque acknowledging the event.

Both women inherited their respective estates during the early 19th century, when primogeniture, the custom of granting lands and property to the oldest surviving son, dominated European law and society.

[1] Subsequently, after the death of their younger brother John while on his honeymoon in Naples, Italy in 1830, Ann and her sister Elizabeth became sole inheritors of the Crow Nest Estate, offering significant wealth.

They took communion together in Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York on Easter Sunday (30 March) in 1834 to seal their union, considering themselves married.

She worshipped regularly at St Matthew's Church in Lightcliffe throughout her life, and read prayers and scripture to her family and servants on Sundays.

[1] She took great care of her servants and tenants, as is evidenced by letters written back home while she was travelling abroad in 1839–1840, where she lists out the gifts that each of them should be given for Christmas in her absence.

On 1 November 1832, Walker faced a difficult decision to choose to be with Lister or accept a traditional marriage with a man:[4] Sat by her on the sofa, both of us perpetually with silent tears trickling down our cheeks.

She kept a journal, of which one volume was discovered on 20 October 2020 among the Rawson Family Collection (WYC:1525/7/1/5/1)[14] by research group 'In Search of Ann Walker'.

The series begins in 1832 in Halifax, West Yorkshire and is based on the collected diaries of Lister, which contain over five million words,[20] one-sixth of which are written in code.

[4] The drama's end credits acknowledge that it was "inspired by the books Female Fortune and Nature's Domain" by Jill Liddington, who acted as consultant and whose own website summarises Lister's extraordinary life as "dazzling worldly achievements plus unbuttoned lesbian affairs.

Walker is portrayed by Christine Bottomley in the 2010 BBC Two biographical drama The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister.