Nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He began his education under another uncle, George Coleridge, leading to a close friendship with John May, who was one of George Coleridge’s former pupils. After John Taylor Coleridge’s triumphant career at Oxford University, May paid for his tour of Europe in 1814 and loaned him £1,000 to set up as a barrister in 1819. His career took a long time to prosper and he undertook a great deal of journalism, including briefly editing the Quarterly Review in 1825–1826. John Taylor Coleridge finally became a judge in the Court of King’s Bench 1835–1858. Throughout his life he was a prolific writer, including a Life of Keble (1869), based on a life-long friendship with the leading High Churchmen of his day. Southey knew him well and they engaged in a substantial correspondence.

Printer and schoolfriend of Walter Scott. He printed Southey’s Madoc (1805) and many of his subsequent poems. Ballantyne’s printing business, in which Scott had a secret share, became one of the most highly regarded and profitable of the first decade of the nineteenth century. In 1809 Southey agreed to provide historical material for the Edinburgh Annual Register, issued by the related publishing firm in which Ballantyne, Scott and Ballantyne’s younger brother John were partners. Southey wrote the historical section of the Register between 1810–1813, though as the Register was issued two years in arrears, this covered the period 1808–1811. Southey was persuaded to invest his first year’s salary of £209 in the Register and become a shareholder in the concern. However, the Register was not a financial success and helped draw the Ballantynes’ partnership into increasing difficulties. Southey was not paid for his work on the volume published in 1813 and ceased writing for the Register at the end of that year. He also lost his investment. As a result, Southey became increasingly hostile to Ballantyne, describing him as shifty and incompetent (a ‘sad shuffler’). Although the Register’s failure owed much to its attempt to compete in an already crowded marketplace, Southey himself played a role. His contributions often massively exceeded the length allocated to them, thus delaying the appearance and increasing the cost to the publisher of the periodical. In 1811 Ballantyne’s concern about the impact of this on the Register’s potential sales led him to demand that Southey publish an apology at the front of that year’s issue.

The friend of almost every literary man of his day, first met Southey at a dinner at Dr Aikin’s in March 1808. Robinson had gone to Spain in 1808 as a special war correspondent of The Times, and through the connections he made at that time he was able to help Southey find materials he needed for the Edinburgh Annual Register.

Younger brother of Henry Kirke and (John) Neville White. He attended Pembroke College, Cambridge, graduating in 1815; Southey sent him some encouraging letters when White was disappointed by his academic performance. White never married and became a clergyman. Initially, he held difficult curacies in industrial parishes in West Bromwich and then St George’s, Manchester (1826–42) – Southey helped him acquire the latter post. However, he finally benefited from the connections his brother, Neville White, had made in Norfolk, especially that with Benjamin Cubitt (1769–1852), a wealthy clergyman and landowner. Cubitt was a relative of Neville White’s wife, Charlotte Sewell, and married in 1827, as his second wife, Neville and James’s middle sister, Frances Moriah White (1791–1854). To consolidate the Whites’ connections with the Cubitts even further, in 1835 Catherine Bailey White (1794–1889), the youngest sister of Neville and James, married Thomas Mack (1794–1858), Benjamin Cubitt’s nephew and another Norfolk clergyman and landowner (Curate 1822–37, Vicar 1837–58 of Tunstead). Cubitt, as patron of the living, appointed James White to be Vicar of Stalham in Norfolk (1843–52). Following Cubitt’s death, White succeeded him as Rector of Sloley (1852–85), and was followed by one of Neville White’s sons, Joseph Neville White (1825–1901) as Vicar of Stalham (1852–1901). James White also inherited the estate at Sloley after the death of his sister, Frances. White officiated at the marriage of Southey’s daughter, Edith May, and John Warter, at Keswick in 1834.

Author and advocate of political reform. Son of John Dyer, a shipwright of Bridewell, London. Educated at Christ’s Hospital and Emmanuel College, Cambridge (BA 1778). From the late 1780s to mid 1790s he was active in reformist causes, a member of the Constitutional Society and author of An Inquiry into the Nature of Subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles (1789, 2nd revised edn 1792), Complaints of the Poor People of England (1793) and A Dissertation on the Theory and Practice of Benevolence (1795). After 1795, he abandoned active politics, turning instead to scholarship and literature. He was a prolific poet whose works included, Poems, Consisting of Odes and Elegies (1792), The Poet’s Fate (1797), and Poetics (1812). Dyer met Southey in c. 1794–1795, probably through Coleridge. He was enthusiastic about Pantisocracy and encouraged the publication of The Fall of Robespierre (1794). He seems to have corresponded with Southey from the mid 1790s, but none of these early letters survive, making it difficult to judge the actual extent of their friendship. It is, however, fair to say, that this has probably been underestimated. A handful of letters written by Southey to Dyer from later periods do exist. Dyer’s close connections with Southey’s literary circle are evidenced in a letter sent to him by Joseph Cottle, 22 April 1797 now in the Houghton Library (Autograph File: Cottle, Joseph).

Poet, dramatist, reviewer and editor. The son of the law stationer James Abraham Heraud (d. 1846) and his wife Jane (d. 1850), he was educated privately. Eschewing the business career for which he had been intended, Heraud embarked on a literary life. He wrote essays, including ones on German literature, for periodicals, contributing to the Quarterly Review from 1827 and the Athenaeum from 1843. He was the assistant editor of Fraser’s Magazine 1830–1833. He also published poems, including the epics The Descent into Hell (1830) and The Judgement of the Flood (1834), and plays. Heraud had a wide circle of acquaintances. Southey was one of the many more established writers Heraud knew socially and from whom he solicited advice on his writing and literary career.

Southey’s oldest surviving daughter, friend of Dora Wordsworth (1804–1847). Edith May married John Wood Warter (1806–1878) in 1834.

Antiquary and topographer, co-editor of the illustrated topographical survey, in 27 volumes, The Beauties of England and Wales (1801–1818) and editor of Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain. Southey corresponded with him about Chatterton, and Britton’s book on the latter appeared in 1813.

Painter and diarist. Southey admired his work and corresponded with Haydon whilst working on an article for the Quarterly Review on Haydon’s New Churches, Considered with Respect to the Opportunities they Offer for the Encouragement of Painting (1818).

Quaker banker and translator of Homer. Father of Charles Lloyd.

A painter who travelled in the Netherlands with Southey and his family in 1815 and who illustrated The Poet’s Pilgrimage to Waterloo (1816). Best known for his miniatures, Nash painted Southey, and a double portrait of Edith May Southey and Sara Coleridge, in 1820.

Country gentleman and JP, of Unitarian and liberal views and literary and scientific interests. He was born in Cirencester, and later owned estates at Bownham House, near Minchinhampton, Gloucestshire and at Easton Grey, near Malmesbury, Wiltshire. He trained as a barrister but a speech impediment meant that he never practiced. He was known as the ‘Macenas of his neighbourhood’ for his patronage of men of letters and his philanthropy. He had a wide circle of friends in public life, including the economist David Ricardo (1772–1823; DNB) and John Whishaw (c. 1764–1840), ‘the Pope of Holland House’. Smith was married to Elizabeth Chandler, a fellow Unitarian. She was a noted collector of autographs and books. They had at least one child, a daughter, who was painted by James Northcote (1746–1831; DNB) in 1803. Southey was on very good terms with the Smiths, whom he probably knew through Charles Danvers. Southey visited them at Bownham in 1803, where he made use of their extensive library. He also sought out new items for Elizabeth Smith’s autograph collection. These included a MS of Coleridge’s then unpublished ‘Kubla Khan’, now British Library Add MS 50847, sent by Southey in February 1804. In turn, Thomas Smith subscribed to the Southey-Cottle edition of Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770; DNB) and lent Southey books.

Writer. The third son of Joseph Foster Barham, he was educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, but left without taking a degree. His marriage to Mary Ann Morton in 1790 produced six children. He was associated with the mercantile house of Plummer & Co, but retired to the West of England in 1806 due to ill health, settling at Leskinnick, near Penzance. His writings, mainly on theology and musical subjects, included: Letter from a Trinitarian to a Unitarian (1811), and Musical Meditations, Consisting of Original Compositions, Vocal and Instrumental (1811, 2nd set 1815). He composed sacred poems and dramas, including Abdallah, or, The Arabian Martyr (1820), and, in 1829, produced an English version of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. Barham admired Southey and corresponded with him, sending a copy of his Selection from Milton’s Hymn on the Nativity: Set to Music, and Dedicated to Robert Southey, Esq., Poet Laureate (1818).

Poet, diplomat, Hispanist, Frere had parodied Southey’s radical ballads in ‘The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-grinder’ in the Anti-Jacobin (1797). Three of Frere’s translations from the Poema del Cid were appended to Southey’s edition of the Chronicle of the Cid. Frere had been Britain’s ambassador to Portugal while Southey’s uncle had lived there; from 1808–1809 he was ambassador to Spain. Southey defended Frere’s conduct in advising Sir John Moore to retreat to Corunna in 1809 and obtained copies of rare Spanish manuscripts for him.

Writer. Brought up in a Dissenting home in London, she first found fame with her Cursory Remarks on an Enquiry into the Experience and Propriety of Public Worship (1792). This propelled her into the circle of radicals around the publisher Joseph Johnson (1738–1809; DNB). Hays’s Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796) gained her some notoriety, as it was a thinly-disguised version of her relationship with the radical William Frend (1757–1841; DNB). She was caricatured in, among other places, Charles Lloyd’s Edmund Oliver (1798), but her main claim to posthumous fame has been her feminist writings, especially An Appeal to the Men of Great Britain in Behalf of Women (1798). Southey met Hays in London in 1797 and corresponded with her in the early 1800s.

Businessman, Dissenter, radical and writer, but most famous for his conversational powers – hence his nickname ‘Conversation’ Sharp. He was born in Newfoundland, the son of the elder Richard Sharp, an army officer. But the family soon returned to England and Sharp took over his grandfather’s hat-making business, later moving into the West India trade. He was a member of various radical organisations in the 1790s and Whig MP for Castle Rising 1806–1812 and Portarlington 1816–1819. Sharp’s only major publication was the anonymous Letters and Essays in Poetry and Prose (1834), but he was a friend and adviser to many literary men. He encouraged Southey to proceed with The Curse of Kehama (1810).

Sixth child of Robert and Edith Southey. She did not marry and in her later years lived at Lairthwaite Cottage in Keswick with her aunt, Mary Lovell.

Daughter of Thomas Holmes (1751–1827), a wealthy East India merchant, who changed his name to Hunter on inheriting the Gobions estate in Hertfordshire in 1802 from his wife’s grandfather. The same year, Ann Holmes eloped, aged sixteen, with Hugh Doherty, an impecunious thirty-year-old Irishman and officer in the Light Dragoons. Their marriage soon broke down, and Doherty published his account of events in The Discovery (1807). This revealed how, in an attempt to prevent the elopement, Ann had been confined by her parents in a ‘madhouse’, from which he had helped her escape. After her separation from her husband, Ann Doherty (as she was then known) published a number of novels, including Ronaldsha (1808), The Castles of Wolfnorth and Mont Eagle (1812) and The Knight of the Glen (1815). Her personal life remained complex. In 1811 Hugh Doherty successfully sued the architect Philip William Wyatt (d. 1835) for ‘criminal conversation’ with his wife. Her relationship with Wyatt did not last and by 1818 she was referring to herself as Ann Attersoll, probably because she was living with John Attersoll (c. 1784–1822), a wealthy merchant, banker and MP for Wootton Bassett 1812–1813. At this time she corresponded with Southey, sending him a copy of her Peter the Cruel King of Castile and Leon: An Historical Play in Five Acts (1818). By 1820 (possibly earlier) she was living in France and had dropped the name of Attersoll and adopted that of Madame St Anne Holmes (much to Southey’s confusion). A French translation of Roderick, the Last of the Goths, published in 1821 by Pierre Hippolyte Amillet de Sagrie (1785–1830), was dedicated to her. She remained in France and was later known by the surname de la Pigueliere.

The elder son of John Bill (d. 1847), a surgeon to the Manchester Infirmary who inherited the Farley estate, near Alton, Staffordshire. Robert Bill was educated at Macclesfield School (now the King’s School, Macclesfield), whose headmaster was Dr David Davies (1755–1828). Bill matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1807 graduating BA 1810 and MA 1814. He pursued a career as a barrister. In 1820 he married Louisa Dauncey, the daughter of Philip Dauncey K.C. (d. 1819) and his wife Marie (Mary) (b. 1769), and the granddaughter of Mrs Dolignon who had acted in loco parentis during Southey’s time at Westminster School. Bill fathered two daughters and died in Rochester, Kent, on 12 October 1823. As a schoolboy in May 1806, Bill wrote to Southey, expressing his enthusiasm for his work. Bill was clearly a fan of contemporary poetry because in February of the same year he had written admiringly to Thomas Campbell. His enthusiasm persisted and in 1823 he, his wife and sister-in-law subscribed to Joanna Baillie’s A Collection of Poems, which included Southey’s ‘The Cataract of Lodore’ and ‘Lines in the Album, at Lowther Castle’. Bill’s love of poetry was shared by his relative, and namesake, the mechanic and inventor Robert Bill (1754–1827; DNB).

The second wife of Wade Browne, by whom she had one daughter, Mary (dates unknown).

Naval officer and writer, second son of the music historian Dr Charles Burney (1726–1814; DNB) and brother of Charles (1757–1817; DNB) and Frances (Fanny; 1752–1840; DNB). He was nicknamed the ‘Capitaneus’ by Southey. He was sent to sea at the age of 10. In 1772 he sailed in the Resolution on James Cook’s (1728–1779; DNB) second voyage to the South Seas and on his return home in 1774 acted as an interpreter for Omai, the first Tahitean to visit Britain. Burney sailed on Cook’s third voyage and witnessed the latter’s death in 1779. He rose to the rank of Captain, but a reputation for insubordination brought his active naval career to an end in 1784. In the 1790s, Burney embarked on a second career as a writer, publishing an edition of William Bligh’s (1754–1817; DNB) A Voyage to the South Sea in HMS Bounty (1792). His magnum opus was A Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean (1803–1817). Burney separated from his wife, setting up house between 1798 to 1803 with his half-sister Sarah Burney (1772–1844) in a relationship that was rumoured to be incestuous. He returned to his wife in 1803, where Southey subsequently visited him at his home in James Street, Westminster. Southey and Burney’s shared interest in the South Seas and voyages of exploration led to a long-standing exchange of information and books.

Son of Henry Courtenay (1741–1803; DNB), Bishop of Exeter. He began his career as a junior clerk at the Treasury and remained an administrator even after he entered the House of Commons as MP for Totnes 1811–1832. He was a long-serving Secretary of the Board of Control of the East India Company 1812–1828. Southey corresponded with him about the poor laws in 1817 (Courtenay was a prolific pamphleteer) and sought his advice for the History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).

Army officer. In summer 1808, as commander of the British forces in Portugal, he was responsible for agreeing to the highly controversial Convention of Cintra, by which the French army, its arms and spoils were repatriated in British ships. Dalrymple was recalled to England shortly afterwards and appeared before a government-appointed board of inquiry, which determined that he be exonerated of all blame. Although he was subsequently promoted, reaching the rank of General in 1812, he never received another command. He wrote a memoir of the Peninsular War in 1818, but it remained unpublished until 1830. He also wrote to Southey in 1816 in reply to the latter's criticisms of the Convention of Cintra in the Quarterly Review and sent Southey information for his History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).

Bishop of Beja, 1770–1802, Archbishop of Evora 1802–1814. Member of the Franciscan Order and Professor of Theology at the University of Coimbra 1751–1755. Cenáculo was closely associated with the reforms of the Marquis of Pombal, Prime Minister of Portugal 1750–1777, and retired to his bishopric when Pombal fell in 1777, devoting his energies to his library and promoting education. When Southey visited Portugal in 1800–1801 he obtained a letter of introduction to the Bishop from his uncle, Herbert Hill, and visited him at Beja in April 1801.