Mary Berry and her sister, Agnes, were born in the Georgian era in 1763 and 1764, respectively. They were approaching ninety when they died in the same year, 1852, well into the Victorian era. The sisters were inseparable and lived fascinating lives. Mary was a writer and diarist, a keen reader, a daring traveler, and a talented conversationalist. Less is known about Agnes, but she was a talented artist and was noted for her pencil drawings. They held salons or, as they called them, “circles,” inviting fashionable society and the brightest and most talented literati, actors, and politicians of the day. These were famous intellectual gatherings and were part of the tradition of the French salon, a space where mixed-gender gatherings were presided over by women. The Berry sisters became friends—in fact almost family—with Horace Walpole, the British member of Parliament and writer, and that deep connection brought them an inheritance and independence. More about the Berry sisters and the “salon” can be found in Susanne Schmid’s excellent British Literary Salons of the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.

The Ladies of Llangollen

Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby, both born to aristocratic families in Ireland, ran away together in 1778 disguised as men and carrying a pistol and a small dog. They were retrieved by their scandalized families and separated. Both women, however, resisted the reproach of their families and the pressure to marry men of their own class and were eventually allowed to reunite and leave Ireland again, this time for North Wales. They settled at Plas Newydd with their faithful servant, Mary Carryl. As aristocrats, they did not work but relied upon gifts from friends and family—with whom they managed to stay on good terms—and lived a relatively modest lifestyle. Plas Newydd was on the main transport route to Ireland and so it became fashionable for society to stop and be entertained by the ladies, who had a reputation as excellent hosts and conversationalists. Their precarious financial situation was eventually alleviated by an inheritance from their faithful servant, Mary, and a pension from King George III, who granted it on advice from his wife, Queen Charlotte. The ladies always denied anything other than a platonic friendship and even threatened legal action against a newspaper that wrote about their relationship in an unflattering way. They are, however, widely considered to be an iconic historical queer couple and demonstrated to many women of their own time, and long after, that two women could flout convention and build a happy and stable home together.

The Luddites