Secretary and Treasurer to the Whitehaven Harbour Trustees. He was well known to Wordsworth through the latter’s work as Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland.

Unmarried daughter of Wade Browne by his first wife. Southey visited the family home in Ludlow when she was a young woman and later corresponded with her.

Soldier. Educated at Westminster School, where he was a friend of Southey’s, and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1789, Bunbury presented Southey with a copy of Thomas Warton’s Poems (3rd edn, 1779). Their friendship did not last. In 1793, Bunbury tried to avoid Southey when the latter was visiting Cambridge. Southey, in turn, claimed that Bunbury’s ‘debauchery’ was the direct result of his public school education. Bunbury joined the army and died at the Cape of Good Hope. Bunbury’s father, the artist Henry William Bunbury, and his younger brother, Sir Henry Edward Bunbury, later became close friends of Southey’s and members of his circle in Keswick.

A radical politician involved in the election of 1807 for the Westminster constituency. Burdett fought a duel with his fellow radical candidate James Paull (1770–1808; DNB), whose independence of party Southey applauded. Southey initially admired Burdett but became increasingly critical of him as he became more suspicious of popular radicalism.

Clergyman and author. Only son of George and Mary Martha Butt and brother of Mary Martha Sherwood (1775–1851; DNB), author of The Fairchild Family. Educated Westminster (adm. 1788) and Christ Church, Oxford (matric. 1792, BA 1796, MA 1799). Curate of Witley, Worcestershire; Rector of Oddingley, Worcestershire from 1806 and Vicar of East Garston, Berkshire from 1806. Author of The Last Vision of Daniel (1808) and other works. His first wife was Mary Ann Congreve; his second, Jemima Hubbal. Butt was a friend of Southey’s at Westminster School and Oxford.

Bookseller. The son of the London bookseller Thomas Cadell (1742–1802; DNB), he took over his father’s business in 1793, working in partnership with William Davies (d. 1820; DNB).

Was at school with Wordsworth at Hawkshead, where he later became schoolmaster. On the death of his father, Calvert became a man of independent means, inheriting, alongside other property, the estate of Bowness on the east shore of Bassenthwaite, near Keswick. He was a member of Southey’s Lake District circle. His younger brother Raisley (1773–1795) left Wordsworth a legacy of £900.

Contributor to the Anti-Jacobin, 1797–1798, and parodist there of Southey’s radical ballads. A Pittite in politics, Canning was Foreign Secretary 1807 until 1809, when he lost office after fighting a duel with another minister. In this capacity, he signed a treaty providing for the removal of the Portuguese court to Brazil, and sent British troops to the peninsula, though more tardily and in smaller numbers than Southey wished. The Convention of Cintra and the retreat to Corunna were setbacks in the peninsular war for which he was held partly responsible. Canning was a major influence on the politics of the Quarterly Review, sometimes in ways that Southey disliked, and he suspected Canning of preventing the Quarterly opposing Catholic Emancipation. However, the two men were on relatively friendly terms and Canning visited Southey at Keswick in 1814 before he left to be Ambassador to Portugal, 1814–1816. From 1822 to April 1827 Canning was again Foreign Secretary, and from April to August 1827, Prime Minister.

A native of the Suffolk town of Bury St Edmunds, she married Thomas Clarkson in 1796. She shared his radicalism and became close friends with the Wordsworths, Southey, Coleridge and Crabb Robinson. Owing to her illness, she was treated by Beddoes in Bristol in 1804 and 1805; she and her husband moved south to Suffolk from the Lake District for the sake of her health in 1806.

A journalist whose weekly paper, the Political Register, took an anti-jacobinical line until 1804, but thereafter became progressively more radical, supporting Burdett at the Westminster election of 1807. From 1810 to 1812 he was imprisoned after being prosecuted by the government for criticising flogging in the militia. Cobbett’s political development was the exact opposite of Southey’s and Southey was a consistent critic of Cobbett.

Fourth and youngest child of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Sarah Fricker; and Southey’s niece. Translator, writer and indefatigable editor of her father’s works. Educated, in part, by Southey, her first book, a translation of Martin Dobrizhoffer’s History of the Abipones (1822), was a project that he found for her. In 1829 she married her first cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge.

Nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was educated by his uncle George Coleridge, master of the grammar school at Ottery St Mary. This was followed by a glittering career at Oxford University. He used his prestige in the University to secure the scholarship, known as a Postmastership, that allowed Hartley Coleridge to attend Merton College, Oxford. William Hart Coleridge was a clergyman who later became Bishop of Barbados and the Leeward Islands 1824–1842.

Clergyman. Son of Richard Combe of Harley St. Educated at Westminster (adm. June 1785) and Christ Church, Oxford (matric. October 1792, BA 1796, MA 1803). Admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, January 1795. Perpetual Curate of Barrington, Somerset, 1810; Rector of Earnshill and of Donyatt from 1821. Southey met Combe at Westminster and later described him as one of his ‘most intimate acquaintances’ during his years at school. Combe was known by the nicknames ‘His Majesty’ or the ‘King of Men’. Although their close friendship did not outlast Oxford, Southey did visit Combe in 1824.

Prominent Irish politician. Born in Newry, son of the merchant and MP Edward Corry. Educated at the Royal School, Antrim and BA, Trinity College, Dublin, 1773. Succeeded his father as MP for Newry in the Irish Parliament, 1776. Originally an opposition MP, he first gained office as surveyor-general of the ordnance in 1788 and rose to be Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1799–1804. Always a controversial figure, he fought a duel with the opposition MP, Henry Grattan (1746–1820; DNB), in 1800. He supported the British government’s policies of Union between Britain and Ireland and Catholic Emancipation, but was still dismissed by the Prime Minister, William Pitt (1759–1806; DNB) in 1804. Rickman secured Southey the post of Corry’s secretary in 1801–1802.

Writer and lexicographer. Born at Dunster Park, Berkshire, the son of Richard Croft. He inherited the Croft baronetcy from a relative in 1797, but no money or lands to accompany the title. He practised as a barrister in London in the late 1770s, and gained some reputation as a miscellaneous writer. Perennially short of money, Croft changed direction and graduated from University College, Oxford in 1785 and was appointed Vicar of Prittlewell in Essex and chaplain of the British garrison in Quebec. Most of his time in the late 1780s and early 1790s was devoted to compiling a new dictionary, but, despite amassing 11,000 entries, he could not find enough subscribers to publish the book and the project was abandoned in 1793. In 1795 Croft was arrested for debt and fled to Hamburg, only returning to England in 1800–1802, after which he lived in France, dying in Paris. In 1780 Croft had published Love and Madness, the story of James Hackman (c. 1752–1779; DNB), who had shot Martha Ray (1742?–1779; DNB), the lover of the Earl of Sandwich (1718–1792; DNB). The book contained a lengthy digression into the life of the Bristol poet Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770; DNB). Southey published a letter in the Monthly Magazine for November 1799, accusing Croft of obtaining some of Chatterton’s letters by deception from the poet’s mother and sister, and refusing to pay them any share of his profits from Love and Madness. Croft’s defence, to say the least, was evasive. In 1803 Southey and Joseph Cottle published a new version of Chatterton’s works for the benefit of his sister and niece.

Mother of Charles Danvers. She lived at Kingsdown in Bristol and became very close to Southey when he was resident in the city in the late 1790s and 1802–1803. After her death in the influenza epidemic of 1803, Southey described her as someone ‘whom I regarded with something like a family affection.’

Wealthy widow, socialite and distant cousin of Walter Scott. She married Humphry Davy on 11 April 1812.

A friend of Grosvenor Charles Bedford and his family. Daughter of Mr and Mrs Deacon.

Clergyman and bibliographer. He and Southey met at a dinner given by Longman, the publisher. Dibdin sent the Poet Laureate a copy of his expensive and lavishly illustrated Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany (1821). This courtesy initiated a spasmodic correspondence between the two men on literary matters.

The widowed Mrs Dolignon and her sisters, the Misses Delamere, were friends of Southey’s aunt Elizabeth Tyler. Southey spent time at the Delamere home (Theobalds) in Hertfordshire, and Elizabeth Dolignon seems to have acted as his guardian during his time at Westminster School. William Vincent wrote to her (and not to Southey’s parents) regarding his involvement in The Flagellant. Southey, in turn, went from Westminster to the Delameres’ house after his suspension from school. Southey later recorded his ‘utmost reverence and affection’ for Dolignon.

Member of a family of Sussex landowners. He was a friend of Southey’s from Westminster School. D’Oyley was later a barrister and circuit judge and played a leading role in Sussex society and county administration. He had strong antiquarian interests.

A surgeon and apothecary in Keswick, who treated the Southey family.

London publishers and booksellers. Southey and his collaborators Bedford and Wynn, employed the Egertons as printers for the first five numbers of the schoolboy magazine The Flagellant, which appeared between 1–29 March 1792. The fifth issue contained a controversial essay denouncing flogging as an invention of the devil. Under pressure from Dr William Vincent, the Head Master of Westminster School, the Egertons revealed that Southey was its author. Southey was expelled and the Egertons’ involvement with The Flagellant ceased. The remaining four issues, 5–26 April 1792, were printed by the Pall-Mall bookseller and printer Edward Jeffrey (dates unknown).

Soldier. Educated at Christ’s Hospital, where he was a friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Obtained an army commission, fought in the Peninsular War and was killed at the battle of Salamanca. There is some confusion over Favell’s first name — with some sources citing it as Joseph or Samuel — see C. A. Prance, Companion to Charles Lamb. A Guide to People and Places 1760–1847 (1983), pp. 112–113 and Duncan Wu, ‘Unpublished drafts of sonnets by Lamb and Favell’, Charles Lamb Bulletin, n.s. 75 (1991), 100.