LGBT+ History Month 2025: Stories of queer widows

There hasn’t always been support for LGBTQIA+ people who are bereaved – until same sex marriage was legalised in 2014, some people didn’t always even recognise us as widows. But as these stories show, queer widowhood has been with us as long as queer relationships.
 
Ann Walker – widowed in 1840
Ann Walker met Anne Lister, known as Gentleman Jack (jack was a 19th century term for a lesbian) and described as the first modern lesbian, in 1815, and they began a relationship in 1832. They exchanged vows and rings in February 1834, and took communion together in York, an act that meant they considered themselves married. Anne Lister died in 1840, leaving Ann Walker a widow at just 37.
 
Cardinal John Henry Newman – widowed(?) in 1875
Cardinal John Henry Newman was a scholar, theologian, philosopher, historian, writer and poet. He was an Anglican priest and met Ambrose St John, another priest, in 1841. They converted to Catholicism together, were ordained at the same time, and lived together for 32 years. St John died in 1875, and Newman grieved deeply. John Henry Newman died in 1890, and the two men share the same grave. Different people have different perspectives on their story, with some saying that it was simply a deep and intense friendship, and others celebrating it as a loving gay relationship.
 
Julian Clary – widowed 1991
Julian Clary’s partner, Christopher, died of AIDS in 1991. Clary nursed Christopher for nine months before he died.
 
Dudley Cave – widowed in 1994
Dudley Cave was one of the original members of the London Gay Switchboard, now Switchboard LGBT+, and he created the Lesbian and Gay Bereavement Project to support people in the community who had lost partners. Cave met his partner Bernard Williams in 1954, and they remained together until Williams’ death in 1994.
 
Tam O’Shaughnessy – widowed in 2012
Tam O’Shaughnessy is a former professional tennis player. She was a science teacher, an associate professor or school psychology and a science educator, and she and her astronaut partner Sally Ride wrote science books for children together. O’Shaughnessy co-founded Sally Ride Science, a project to promote science to girls, with Ride and three friends.
 
Andy Bell – widowed 2012
​Andy Bell of Erasure lost his former partner Paul M Hickey, who was also his manager, in 2012. Paul and Andy were together for 25 years and were both HIV-positive.
 
For more on widows and LGBT+ History Month, read my piece on queer widowhood then and now written for WAY Widowed and Young, along with Joanna’s story and Andrew’s story.