Miscellaneous writer from Salisbury. He lived in London from 1799 and wrote a number of guide books and descriptions of his travels. Feltham corresponded briefly with Southey about his A Tour Through the Island of Mann (1798).

A merchant in the Portugal and Brazil trade with literary and antiquarian tastes. He assembled an impressive collection of books and manuscripts on Brazil and Southey thanked Gooden for lending him ‘the Life of F. Joam d’Almeida, among other books, and a manuscript Apology for the Jesuits in Paraguay and Maranham, of great importance’; see Southey’s History of Brazil, 3 vols (London, 1810–1819), II, p. [v].

Book-collector and part-proprietor of the Monthly Mirror. Born in Lancaster in May 1760, he went at an early age to London, where for many years he carried on an extensive business as a drysalter at Queenhithe. He patronized Robert Bloomfield, whose The Farmer’s Boy he read in manuscript and recommended to a publisher. In his role as part-owner of the Monthly Mirror he befriended one of its contributors, the youthful Henry Kirke White. Southey believed that Hill owned probably ‘the best existing collection of English poetry’.

Clergyman. The son of an Oxfordshire cleric, he was educated at Corpus Christi, Oxford (BA 1795), where he remained as a fellow from 1795–1819. He was Rector of Heydon and Little Chishill from 1810. He was a university friend of Southey’s. Although they lost touch in the mid 1790s, in 1835 after a gap of ‘one and forty years’ Horseman wrote to Southey recalling their old acquaintance. At the time of their reunion, Southey was not aware that at the height of the Wat Tyler controversy in 1817, a ‘John Horseman’ — presumably the same one — had sent his political opponent William Smith (1756–1835) a transcript of another production of the Poet Laureate’s radical youth — ‘To the Exiled Patriots’. Horseman’s letter is now in the William R. Perkins Library, Duke University.

Son of Sir John Kennaway, 1st Baronet (1758– 1836), who made a fortune in service to the East India Company and became a landowner in Devon. He served as Vicar of Chipping Campden 1832–1872 and Canon of Gloucester Cathedral. Kennaway visited Southey in October 1819 and again in October 1820 when he was on a tour of the Lake District in company with his university friend, Leland Noel.

Antiquarian and librarian. Born in Edinburgh, he was the son of the publisher and antiquarian bookseller William Laing (1764–1832; DNB) and his wife Helen (1767–1837). The elder Laing had lent books to help Southey with his edition of Le Morte d'Arthur (1817) and Southey visited his shop on his trips to Edinburgh in 1806 and 1819. David Laing entered his father’s business, becoming a partner in 1821. As well as being highly regarded for his professional knowledge, Laing also assembled his own extensive collection of books and manuscripts. Honours included election to a Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1824 and to the post of Librarian to the Society of Writers to H.M. Signet in 1837. Southey, who supported Laing’s candidacy for the latter, shared many of his bibliophilic and antiquarian interests, and they corresponded intermittently.

Rector of Hargrave, Northamptonshire, 1805–1818, and Curate of Westwood, Wiltshire, 1825–1851. Longmire was a well-connected evangelical clergyman, the nephew of Thomas Martyn (1735–1825; DNB), Professor of Botany at Cambridge University, 1762–1825. In 1812 Longmire wrote to Southey to thank him for the moral lessons and biblical parallels that could be drawn from Thalaba the Destroyer (1801), which had strengthened his faith. Southey was surprised and amused, but replied politely.

Educated at University of Edinburgh. He married Mary Grey on 27 April 1813 and was Minister of Kelso. He worked with John and James Ballantyne on the Edinburgh Annual Register, producing the yearly ‘Chronicle’ from late 1810. He was one of the financial guarantors of their co-partnership, along with Walter Scott. He was described as ‘highly and justly respected, and esteemed for the urbanity of his manner, his unaffected piety, and other excellent qualities’ (James Haig, A Topographical and Historical Account of the Town of Kelso (Edinburgh, 1825), p. 119).

Member of a family of Perthshire landowners, Scottish lawyer and Judge of the Court of Session from 1829. He was a Whig and supported the Free Church when it broke away from the Church of Scotland in 1843. Moncreiff was educated at Glasgow University and Balliol College, Oxford. He and his elder brother, William Wellwood Moncreiff (c. 1775–1813), knew Southey during their time at Balliol, and James corresponded briefly with Southey in 1816.

An attorney in Whitehaven, who was involved in administering the complex affairs of Greta Hall, the house that Southey rented from 1803 onwards. He corresponded with Southey on business matters.

Editor and owner of the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1792–1826. Printer, author and noted antiquarian. Among his many works was Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (1812–1815).

Tanner and farmer of Nether Stowey in Somerset. He met Southey and Coleridge during their walking tour of 1794 and became a friend of both and a crucial financial support to Coleridge. Poole helped untangle the financial difficulties left by Coleridge’s failed periodical, The Watchman, found a house at Nether Stowey for Coleridge’s family in 1797 and provided much financial assistance for them while Coleridge was in Germany in 1798–1799. Poole was the central figure in reconciling Coleridge and Southey in August 1799. Later, he assisted Rickman in compiling a report on the state of the poor. Southey last met Poole on his tour of the West Country in 1837.

Eldest son of the wealthy Sussex landowner, baronet and MP, Sir Timothy Shelley (1753–1844). He became a published poet and novelist while still at Eton and was expelled from University College, Oxford, in March 1811 for writing The Necessity of Atheism (1811). In August 1811 he eloped with, and married, Harriet Westbrook (1795–1816), causing a temporary breakdown in relations with his family. Shelley admired some of Southey’s poetry, especially Thalaba the Destroyer (1801) and The Curse of Kehama (1810), and engaged in a number of intense conversations with the older man while Shelley lodged in Keswick in 1811–1812. Southey saw Shelley as a ‘ghost’ of his own past, who would grow out of his heterodox opinions. He directed Shelley to the work of the philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1743; DNB), as an antidote to atheism, thus profoundly influencing Shelley’s intellectual development. Shelley left suddenly for Ireland in February 1812 and the two men did not meet again. However, this was not the end of their relationship. Southey took an increasingly hostile view of Shelley’s politics and his abandonment of his first wife. Shelley (erroneously) believed that Southey had attacked him in the Quarterly Review in 1820, leading to an acrimonious exchange of letters.

Author, draughtsman and lithographic printmaker from Birmingham. He was a Unitarian and supporter of a variety of radical causes, and in 1818 sent Southey his proposed set of illustrations for Thalaba the Destroyer (1801). Southey agreed to try and promote the work, and endeavoured to persuade his friends to subscribe to the publication of Smith’s work, which Longman brought out later in 1818.

Of Mirehouse, near Keswick. A boyhood friend of Wordsworth who became a close friend of the Southey family.

Spanish poet and journalist. He was the grandson of an Irishman who had founded a business in Seville, though his mother was from a minor Spanish noble family. In 1798 he became a priest, though he had effectively abandoned this role by 1805 and did not find a new vocation until, in 1808–1810, he edited the Seminario Patriotico in Seville in aid of the Spanish cause, followed by El Espanol in London 1810–1814. White supported the need for reform and despaired at the restitution of the absolute Monarchy in 1814. He spent the rest of his life in England as a journalist and miscellaneous writer. Southey respected White’s political role in 1808–1814, and once he had become an Anglican in 1812, tried to help him find a post in the Church. He was also crucial in urging White to write a tract against Catholic Emancipation in 1825, which led to White becoming an Honorary Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford in 1826–1832. In his last years he moved away from Anglicanism to Unitarianism.

Spanish scholar, historian and archivist. He was one of the secretaries to the commission that drew up the plans for the Cortes that met in 1810 and later served in that body as a deputy from Aragon. In 1810-1811 he was in London as secretary to the Duke of Albuquerque, the Cortes’s representative in the United Kingdom. At this time, Southey (who had been given an introduction to Abella by Henry Crabb Robinson) wrote to him requesting documents that might help with accounts of the Peninsular War Southey was producing for the Edinburgh Annual Register. Abella obliged and continued to send Southey material after he returned to Cadiz in 1811. The two men became friendly, despite never meeting. Southey offered Abella advice on where his son might attend school in England and Abella arranged for Southey to become a Fellow of the Royal Spanish Academy and the Royal Academy of History. After the restoration of royal absolutism in 1814 Southey lost contact with Abella.

In 1820–1821, Atkins wrote (anonymously) to Southey about the latter’s proposed ‘Life of George Fox and the Rise and Progress of Quakerism’. Southey replied, but Atkins died before the letter reached him; see New Letters of Robert Southey, ed. Kenneth Curry, 2 vols (New York and London, 1965), II, p. 222, n. 1, which contains the only definite information about Atkins.

Publisher, in partnership with J. Harris. In 1813 they suggested Southey should take up the continuation of John Campbell’s (1708–1775; DNB), Lives of the Admirals and Other Eminent British Seamen (1742–1744). Southey immediately declined the offer on the grounds of his inadequate knowledge of the subject.

Bookseller and antiquary. He was born and lived in Newcastle, where from 1803-1817 he ran a booksellers shop on Quayside. He was the founder of a short-lived numismatic society. In 1813 he was involved in the founding of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle Upon Tyne, serving as its Treasurer until his bankruptcy. Southey corresponded with him in 1814 about Morris dancing.

Schoolmaster, clergyman and lexicographer. Southey corresponded with him in 1802 concerning Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770; DNB).

French author and translator, who had served as secretary to Jérôme Bonaparte (1784–1860), when the latter was King of Westphalia (1807–1813). He produced translations of works by Byron, Sir William Jones, James Macpherson, and Shakespeare. In 1821 he translated Southey’s Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814) into French.

Poet, scholar, Radnorshire landowner and Justice of the Peace. In his youth he had spent time in Russia as a member of the chevalier guard of Catherine II, the Great (1729–1796; Empress of Russia 1762–1796). He published several collections of light verse, and in 1819 sent a copy of one of these – The Banquet, in Three Cantos – to Southey.

One of the ‘Ladies of Llangollen’. Butler was an Anglo-Irish woman who, despite family disapproval, in 1780 set up house with Sarah Ponsonby at Plas Newydd, on the outskirts of Llangollen, North Wales. Their relationship fascinated contemporaries and has continued to attract speculation. Although the Ladies were famed for their lifestyle of retirement, simplicity and self-improvement, they received many guests – both admirers and tourists. Southey visited in 1811.