Green’s Dictionary of Slang

the man with whom a woman cohabits.

1698		N. Ward London Spy II 35: We thought the Devil was Riding [...] with a Pack of Deep-mouth’d Hell-Hounds, to catch a Brace of Tallymen for Breakfast.
c.1707		‘The Long Vacation’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) IV 139: When Tally-men had no Faith, / With Strumpets and Whores, / But nap’d them in the Streets, / By Dozens and Scores.
1714		A. Smith Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 164: For to be sure she had a Talley-man in every quarter of the Town.
1723		C. Walker Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 37: The Girl thus debauch’d, and made fit for the Game, got her self Rigg’d handsomely by sally’s Tallyman.
1733		Laugh and Be Fat 151: Whores painted, Marks tainted, / In Tally Man’s Furbelow Cloaths.
1837		Tait’s Edinburgh Mag. new ser. IV 34/1: ‘What! was this her second husband?’ we inquired. ‘Ay,’ said the old man, with a knowing look, ‘her tally husband — and that makes a difference.’.
1849		Preston Chron. (Lancs.) 20 Jan. 7/5: The language used by both parent and child was most revolting; and the conduct of the ‘tally husband’ [...] anything but creditable.
1863		J. Ashworth Strange Tales from Humble Life 178: I wonder if there be any tally wives or tally husbands here? if there are, I hope they never pray.
1876		John Read ‘All Do It’ 🎵 Mrs Brown says it’s a sin, that Mrs Smith drinks gin / And harbours tally-men from day to day / While Mrs. Green was caught, doing what she didn’t aught.
1880		Burnley Advertiser 22 June 7/2: Witness asked the prisoner where she had got the slippers, and the prisoner replied she had [...] ‘bought them from her tally husband’.
1917		E. Holdsworth Helen of Four Gates 194: ‘[...] though it should make me love it more if — if he hadn’t been a tally-husband!’ Her voice trailed off into mute misery.