One of the leading publishers of the first half of the nineteenth century. After setting up in business in 1806 he became well-known for promoting popular fiction, including ‘silver fork’ society novels, naval adventures and historical novels. He also had an interest in numerous periodicals, including the New Monthly Magazine, the Literary Gazette and the Athenaeum, and gained a reputation for ‘puffing’ his own authors in their pages. In 1814 Colburn wrote to Southey, asking for biographical details and a portrait of Southey to use in the first issue of his New Monthly Magazine. Southey obliged, directing Colburn to a copy of the bust of Southey sculpted in 1813. The article and portrait appeared in the New Monthly Magazine, 1 (January–June 1814), 566–571.

Third son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Sarah Fricker; and Southey’s nephew. Anglican clergyman, writer and educationist. First Principal of St Mark’s teacher training college in Chelsea 1841–1864.

Clergyman, historian and travel writer. His successful clerical career culminated in his appointment as Archdeacon of Wiltshire 1804–1828, but he devoted most of his time to historical writings, including History of the House of Austria (1807) and Memoirs of the Bourbon Kings of Spain (1813). Coxe concentrated on diplomatic exchanges and high politics, leading Southey to view his books as very dull, if worthy. The two corresponded briefly about European history.

The son of the barrister and man of letters Robert Charles Dallas (1754–1824; DNB). In later life he became an evangelical Church of England clergyman and organiser of the Irish Church Missions to the Roman Catholics. As a young man he had served as an army officer during the Peninsular War and at Waterloo, and had composed literary and musical pieces about the Peninsular campaign. In 1818 Dallas sent the manuscript of his Felix Alvarez, Or, Manners in Spain; Containing Descriptive Accounts of Some of the Prominent Events of the Late Peninsular War (1818) to Southey in order to assist the latter in preparing his History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).

English antiquarian and Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum 1799–1811. Southey reviewed Douce’s Illustrations of Shakespeare and Ancient Manners (1807) and sent him some suggestions for further notes on obscure phrases in Shakespeare’s plays.

Son of Benjamin Disraeli (1730–1816), a wealthy Italian-Jewish merchant. Isaac devoted his life to his library and miscellaneous literary works, most famously his Curiosities of Literature (1791). He corresponded with Southey on literary subjects on an intermittent basis, and dedicated the fourth edition of his The Literary Character; or the History of Men of Genius (1828) to him. Southey praised his good nature, but thought him a mixture of knowledge and ignorance. Isaac was the father of Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881; DNB, Hist P), Prime Minister, 1868, 1874–1880.

Lawyer and politician. Younger brother of the barrister and from 1806–7 Lord Chancellor Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine (1750–1823; DNB).

American polymath and politician. Everett was appointed to a newly endowed Chair in Greek at Harvard in 1815. This permitted him to study and travel in Europe, which he did between 1815–1819, enrolling for part of this time at Göttingen University alongside his friend George Ticknor. In summer 1818 Everett visited the Lakes and called on Southey. The latter described him as ‘one of the most interesting men I have seen’. Everett returned to America in 1819 and became editor of the North American Review in the following year. He entered political life, serving as a Member of the House of Representatives 1824–1835, Governor of Massachusetts 1836–1840, Minister to the United Kingdom 1841–1845 and Secretary of State 1853–1854. He was a Vice–Presidential candidate in 1860 and was the speaker immediately before Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in 1863.

Postal administrator and book collector. A supporter of William Pitt (1759–1806; DNB), in the 1790s Freeling was involved in monitoring the activities of corresponding societies and supporters of the French revolution. A bibliophile, he was elected to the fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries in 1801. Southey and Freeling were both the sons of Bristol tradesmen. They corresponded over financial matters connected to Southey and Joseph Cottle’s 1803 edition of the works of their fellow Bristolian, Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770; DNB).

Geologist and MP. He was the only surviving child of George Bellas (d. 1784) and his wife Sarah. In 1795 he adopted the surname of his maternal grandfather, the wealthy apothecary Thomas Greenough, on inheriting the latter’s fortune. A Dissenter, he completed his studies at the University of Göttingen in the late 1790s and befriended Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He returned to England in 1801 and was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1807. In the same year he was a founder-member of the club that became the Royal Geological Society. He supported the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, was a founder-member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and a proprietor of the company that established University College, London. Between 1807 and 1812 he sat as an MP for the pocket borough of Gatton. In 1818 he lent Southey books on the Guarani language and was thanked for so doing in the final volume of the History of Brazil (1810–1819).

London solicitor, who became a well-known bibliographer and antiquary. He edited many early English texts and created a very important collection of ephemeral literature. Southey corresponded with him about the works of Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770; DNB).

Eldest son of Herbert and Catherine Hill. Southey greatly liked him and invited him to spend the summer at Greta Hall in 1830. He became a clergyman and was Rector of Sheering, Essex, 1849–1899.

Anglican clergyman, Vicar of St John the Baptist, Croxall, 1809–1838. In 1811 he married Diana Sarah (d. 1857), daughter of the Jamaican plantation owner Nathaniel Bayly (1726–1798, Hist P), MP for Abingdon 1770–1774 and Westbury 1774–1779. In 1821 Holworthy sent Southey a copy of his Poems, by a Clergyman, published earlier in the same year.

Daughter of a family of Yorkshire farmers, she was the younger sister of Mary Wordsworth. Coleridge fell in love with her in winter 1799 during his first visit to the north of England and the Lakes. Over the next decade, their relationship caused great distress to them and their respective families. Practical and eminently capable, Sara, who never married, spent a great deal of time with the Wordsworths and their children. She also became a very close friend of the Southey family, providing invaluable assistance after the death of Herbert Southey in 1816 and also in the mid 1830s during Edith Southey’s confinement in The Retreat, York.

Birmingham Quaker, poet and banker. In 1808 he married Olivia Lloyd (1783–1854), sister of Charles Lloyd. He was also editor of the poems of the Bristol writer William Isaac Roberts. Southey was sympathetic to this project and promoted the book among his friends.

He was based in or near Liverpool, but little is known of his background or occupation. In 1821, in response to Southey’s The Life of Wesley (1820), he wrote to Southey offering to lend him papers by John Wesley (1703–1791; DNB) in his possession.

Moravian minister and composer – he was a friend of Joseph Haydn (1732–1809; DNB). Born into the Moravian community at Fulneck, Yorkshire, he was educated in Germany and returned to England in 1784. From 1787 to 1834 he was secretary to the Moravian Brethren’s Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel to the Heathen. In 1790 he initiated the influential Periodical Accounts of Moravian missions, and in 1795 became secretary of the international Moravian church in Britain. He moved in interdenominational evangelical circles and was much sought after by founders of new missionary societies. In 1820 he wrote to Southey complaining about the portrayal of the Moravians in the Life of Wesley (1820). Southey replied that he had not intended to cause offence and offered to make changes in the next edition. Latrobe was clearly not pacified and wrote again. Southey did not reply to this second letter, putting an end to their correspondence.

Portrait painter. The son of a Bristol innkeeper, he was self–taught and displayed his brilliant talents as a draughtsman from childhood. He established himself as a fashionable painter in 1790 with a portrait of Queen Charlotte (1744–1818; DNB) and was much patronised by royalty. He was knighted in 1815 and was elected President of the Royal Academy in 1820. Southey wrote to him that year in response to an invitation he had received to the Academy’s Annual Dinner. Sir Robert Peel later commissioned Lawrence to paint Southey’s portrait. Consequently, in 1828 Southey, who was visiting London, sat a number of times for Lawrence at his studio. The resultant portrait was widely admired and is now in the South African National Gallery.

A Tory politician who was successively Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies and then, from 1812–1827, Prime Minister. Southey wrote to him directly in 1817, urging further measures to suppress the Radical press.

Barrister. Second son of John Losh. Born at Woodside, Carlisle, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1786) and Lincoln’s Inn (called to the Bar 1789). He visited Paris in 1792 and on his return to England moved in a circle of metropolitan and Cambridge-based radicals and reformers that included George Dyer, William Godwin, John Horne Tooke (1736–1812; DNB), John Tweddell (1769–1799; DNB), Felix Vaughan (dates unknown), and William Wordsworth. In 1795–1796, ill-health forced his relocation to Bath, where he moved in the same circles as Southey. Losh was amongst the earliest readers of the manuscript of the first complete version of Madoc and had literary ambitions of his own, publishing an edition of Milton’s Areopagitica (1791) and a translation of Benjamin Constant’s Observations on the Strength of the Present Government in France (1797). He married Cecilia Baldwin in February 1798 and moved permanently to Newcastle at the end of the same year. In later life he was a successful lawyer, businessman and local politician.

Younger half-brother of the poet Robert Lovell. He was a commission agent and partner in the Bristol firm of Fisher, King & Lovell. In 1818 he wrote to Southey asking how to contact his (and Southey’s) nephew, Robert Lovell Jnr.

Legal writer, antiquary and member of the Royal Irish Academy. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he struck up a lifelong friendship with Thomas Moore (1779–1852; DNB). He was called to the Irish Bar in 1800, but never practised, instead holding posts as examiner to the prerogative courts and as Assistant, later Chief, Librarian of the King’s Inns, Dublin. His charitable and educational activities were numerous and included playing an important part in the Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in Ireland. In 1818 Mason founded the Irish Society for ‘promoting the scriptural education and religious instruction of the Irish-speaking population chiefly through the medium of their own language’ and he was also the moving force behind an association for the improvement of Irish prisons and prison discipline. His best-known publication was a concise account of the history of Irish common and statute law from the Anglo-Norman invasion to the reign of Charles I – Essay on the Antiquity and Constitution of Parliaments in Ireland (1820). Mason met Southey in Keswick in autumn 1812. They corresponded for some twenty years, though few of their letters survive. Mason was especially keen to solicit Southey’s support for his educational projects.

A friend of Felicia Hemans, Miss Maynard lived in Clifton, Bristol. Southey had met her in his home city, where they had acquaintances in common. In 1816 she sent Southey some manuscript music.

Educated at Edinburgh University he practised briefly as a surgeon and in later life assumed the unauthorised title of ‘Doctor’. He married Mary Russell (1750–1830), a distant and wealthy relation of the Dukes of Bedford. Their only child was the writer Mary Russell Mitford (1787–1855; DNB). Mitford’s inverate gambling, social pretensions and extravagant expenditure brought his family close to ruin on several occasions. Southey wrote to Mitford in 1812 to acknowledge receipt of copies of works by Mary Russell Mitford.