Abbot, Charles, 1st Baron Colchester (1757–1829) DNB; Hist P. The Speaker of the House of Commons 1802–1817. He was responsible for the legislation that led to the first census in 1801. Through their mutual interest in statistics, he became Rickman’s patron and was responsible for appointing Rickman Secretary to The Speaker in 1802. Southey called him ‘Emperor of the Franks’ because he was able to take advantage, through Rickman, of Abbot’s privilege of franking mail for free.

Abella, Manuel (1753–1817). 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.

Acland, Thomas Dyke, 10th Baronet (1787–1871) DNB; Hist P. Philanthropist and independently minded conservative MP for Devonshire 1812–1818, 1820–1831 and North Devon 1837–1857. He was a devoted supporter of the Church of England and friendly with Wilberforce. Southey first met him in London in 1817 and admired Acland’s character and (usually) his political conduct.

Adamson, John (1787–1855) DNB. Solicitor, antiquary, Portuguese scholar and leading figure in the intellectual life of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He corresponded with Southey over their shared interest in Portuguese literature and translation. His Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Luis de Camoens (1820) was greatly admired by Southey.

Adderley, Richard Boyle (d. 1857). A friend of Southey’s during his time at Westminster School. His family were from Innishannon, Co. Cork; in later life he was a barrister and civil servant.

Aikin, Arthur (1773–1854) DNB. Son of John Aikin and nephew of Anna Letitia Barbauld. A Unitarian intellectual, writer and lecturer on chemistry and mineralogy and from 1803–1808 the editor of the Annual Review, the journal for which Southey wrote before he became a regular contributor to the Quarterly Review.

Aikin, John (1747–1822) DNB. Physician, author and brother of Anna Letitia Barbauld. In the mid-1790s, Southey and Aikin moved in the same circles in London. Aikin was a regular contributor to periodicals and his review of Joan of Arc appeared in the Analytical Review in 1796. In 1797 Aikin and his son, Arthur Aikin, translated the first volume of Necker’s On the French Revolution. Southey translated the second. In the mid-1790s, Southey (using a variety of pseudonyms) corresponded with Aikin in the latter’s capacity as editor of the Monthly Magazine. In 1807 Southey contributed articles to the new periodical Aikin edited: The Athenæum: a Magazine of Literary and Miscellaneous Information. Southey also contributed to Aikin’s General Biography (1799–1813).

Allen, Robert (1772–1805). Surgeon and journalist. Educated at Christ’s Hospital (where he was a contemporary of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Charles Lamb) and University College, Oxford (BA 1796, MA 1803, MB and MD 1803). He first met Southey, who was flirting with a career in medicine, at the Anatomy School in Oxford in early 1794. They became firm friends, Southey later describing how in 1794 Allen had been his ‘bosom-companion’ and had ‘rendered many hours delightful which would otherwise have passed in the destructive daydreams of solitude’. Allen wrote poetry and, in Oxford in June 1794, introduced Southey to Coleridge. In 1794–1795, Allen was possibly a convert to Pantisocracy. In 1796, he enrolled at the Westminster Hospital and married a wealthy widow, Catherine, daughter of Nathaniel Forster (1726–1790; DNB). She died within a year. In 1797, with the encouragement of Anthony Carlisle, he became deputy surgeon with England’s Second Royals, then stationed in Portugal. He was back in Britain by 1802 and from 1803 until his death worked as a journalist, writing for (according to Charles Lamb) the London newspapers the Oracle, True Briton, Star and Traveller.

Allston, Washington (1779–1843) DNB. American painter and poet. During his time in Rome in 1805–1808 he formed a close friendship with Coleridge, and the two greatly influenced each others’ ideas about the fine arts. Allston lived in England 1811–1818 and gained some renown for his The Dead Man Restored to Life by Touching the Bones of the Prophet Elisha (1811–1814). Southey met him in 1813 and shared Coleridge’s admiration for Allston’s works.

Amyot, Thomas (1775–1850) DNB. Lawyer and antiquary, who had been private secretary to William Windham (1750–1819; DNB), 1806–1810. He sent Southey papers relating to the campaign in Spain and Portugal.

Arrowsmith, Aaron (1750–1823) DNB. Cartographer of Soho Square, London, renowned for his 1790 large chart of the world. Among Arrowsmith’s other productions were A Map Exhibiting All the New Discoveries in the Interior Parts of North America (1795, rev. 1801, 1802, 1804), Chart of the South Pacific (1798) and A New Map of Africa (1802). Southey employed him to make an accurate map of South America for the first volume of his History of Brazil and suggested several books as sources for information about geographical locations. In the end, it was the second volume of Southey’s history, published in 1817, which contained Arrowsmith’s Map of Brazil and Paraguay with the Adjoining Countries.

Atherstone, Edwin (1788–1872). Poet and writer. He was born in Nottingham, son of the dyer Hugh Atherstone (1743–1816) and his wife Ann (1747–1819). He was educated at Fulneck Moravian school. From 1807 he worked as a music teacher at the Franciscan convent school, Taunton, Somerset. He met Thomas Poole and probably through him made acquaintance with Southey. He published his first volume of poetry – The Last Days of Herculaneum; and Abradates and Panthea – in 1821. By 1822 he was planning a poem centred on the Anglo-Saxons, especially Alfred the Great, and wrote to Southey requesting assistance with locating information on these and related subjects. Southey replied and a sporadic correspondence ensued. Atherstone’s poem did not materialise, but his novel The Sea-Kings in England: An Historical Romance of the Time of Alfred appeared in 1830.

Atkins, Edward Erasmus (d. 1820/1821?). 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.

Attersoll, Ann [also known as Ann Holmes, Ann Hunter, Ann Doherty, Ann de la Pigueliere] (c. 1786–1831/1832). 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.

Awdry, John Wither (1795–1878). Eldest surviving son of the solicitor, John Awdry (1766–1844), and Jane, née Bigg-Wither (1770–1845), sister of Herbert Hill’s wife, Catherine. Awdry was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, graduating with a First in 1816. He was elected a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, at the same time as Hartley Coleridge in April 1819. He later qualified as a barrister, was knighted in 1830 and rose to the Supreme Court of Judicature in Bombay 1839–1842. Southey first met Awdry in 1817 when he stayed at the Awdry family’s Swiss holiday home on his continental tour.

Baillie, Joanna (1762–1851) DNB. Scottish poet and dramatist, best-known for A Series of Plays: In which it is Attempted to Delineate the Stronger Passions of the Mind (1798–1812), which Southey greatly admired. Baillie’s first plays and poems were published anonymously in 1790, and her authorship was not revealed until 1800. Her father, James Baillie (c. 1722–1788) was a Presbyterian Minister and Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow, but from 1802 she lived in Hampstead, with her sister Agnes Baillie (1760–1861), and became a familiar figure in London literary society, to which she was introduced by her aunt, the poet Anne Hunter (1742–1821; DNB). Anna Laetitia Barbauld and Lucy Aikin were neighbours and close friends, and Baillie was a regular correspondent of Walter Scott. Baillie and her sister visited Southey at Keswick in 1808, and Southey later contributed two poems (including ‘The Cataract of Lodore’) to her A Collection of Poems, Chiefly Manuscript, And From Living Authors (1823).

Baird, George (1761–1840). Church of Scotland minister and Principal of Edinburgh University. A gifted modern linguist, he also had a keen interest in education, especially schemes for the education of the poor in the Scottish islands and highlands. He was on good terms with Andrew Bell, persuading the latter to bequeath £5,000 for this purpose. In 1827 Baird wrote to Southey requesting that he write a poem, probably supporting Baird’s work as convenor of the Highlands and Islands Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Southey refused the request on the grounds that ‘sacred poetry is what I have ever been afraid to touch’.

Baldwin, Robert (1780–1858). Printer, publisher and bookseller, in partnership with Charles Cradock from 1810. He founded the London Magazine in 1820–1821 and commissioned Southey to produce an edition of The Works of William Cowper (1835–1837). Baldwin’s firm went bankrupt and this involved Southey in an extensive correspondence before he received part of the payment he was promised. Baldwin spent the rest of his life as stock-keeper of the Stationers’ Company.

Ballantyne, James (1772–1833) DNB. 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.

Ballantyne, John (1774–1821). The younger brother of James, and a partner in the publishing firm with him and Scott.

Barbauld, Anna Letitia (née Aikin; 1743–1825) DNB. Poet, essayist and children’s author, sister of John Aikin and aunt of Arthur Aikin, Southey’s editor at the Annual Review. She married the Revd Rochemont Barbauld (1749–1808) on 26 May 1774. Barbauld and Southey met in 1797 and had many acquaintances in common, including George Dyer, William Godwin and Joseph Johnson. Barbauld was publicly linked with the literary and scientific experimentalism of Southey’s circle, and featured in the Anti-Jacobin satire ‘The Pneumatic Revellers’ (1800). She and Southey both contributed to the Monthly Magazine and the Annual Review and occasionally socialised, in particular during Southey’s time in London in 1801–1802. However, his attitude to her was ambivalent. He agreed with her advice to Coleridge (whom Barbauld admired and promoted) not to lose himself in ‘the maze of metaphysic lore’, but condemned the verses in which she articulated this as ‘trite’. He also punned on her surname, calling her ‘Bare-bald’ because he attributed to her a hostile review of Charles Lamb’s play John Woodvil; a Tragedy (1802) in the Annual Review for 1802, 1 (1803), 688–692.

Barham, Thomas Foster (1766–1844) DNB. 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).

Barker, Mary (1774–1853). Author, painter and close friend of Robert Southey. Born in Congreve, Staffordshire, daughter of Thomas Barker, an ironmaster, and Mary Homfray. Author of A Welsh Story (1798), she moved in literary circles. She met Southey in Portugal in 1800 and subsequently visited the Southeys frequently in Bristol, London and Keswick. She was godmother to Southey’s first child, Margaret (d. 1803). Southey had a high opinion of Mary Barker’s talents and proposed that she should illustrate Madoc (1805). She appears as the ‘Bhow Begum’ in The Doctor (1834–1847). Mary Barker lived at Greta Lodge in Keswick, next to Greta Hall, between 1812 and 1817, becoming a close friend of the Coleridges and Wordsworths, as well as the Southeys, and teaching music to the girls of the families. Financial difficulties forced her to move to Boulogne in 1819 and she never returned to England. Southey met her for the last time on his trip to France in 1825. In 1830 she married a Mr Slade, who was much younger than her and thought to be a ‘mere adventurer’ by her Keswick friends.

Barnes, Frederick (‘Ginger’) (1771–1859). Clergyman. A friend of Southey’s during his time at Westminster School and Oxford. In later life, Barnes held several livings in Devonshire.

Barrington, Charles James (1785–1825). 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.

Barton, Bernard (1784–1849) DNB. Quaker poet. He was a clerk in Alexanders’ Bank in Woodbridge, Suffolk, and disliked travelling, but carried on an extensive correspondence with a number of men of letters, including Southey and Lamb. Barton asked for Southey’s help with some of his literary projects, but the two met only once, in 1824. His half-brother, the economist John Barton (1789–1852; DNB), married Ann Woodruffe Smith (d. 1822), the daughter of Grosvenor Bedford’s friend, Thomas Woodruffe Smith.

Beaumont, George Howland, 7th Baronet (1753–1827) DNB. Art patron, landscape painter, and coal mine owner. He was a friend and patron of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Constable and Scott, inviting them to his estate at Coleorton, Leicestershire. Sir George was an enthusiastic amateur painter and owner of many Italian landscapes. Southey first met Beaumont in the Lakes in 1803 and corresponded with him and his wife.

Beaumont, Margaret, Lady (née Willes; 1756–1829). Daughter of Sir John Willes (c. 1721–1784), a landowner in Northamptonshire and MP. Her family had literary and artistic interests and she met Sir George Beaumont at a play reading at her home, Astrop Hall, in Northamptonshire. They were married on 6 May 1778. In 1782 a Grand Tour of Europe increased their keen interest in art – both Margaret and her husband sketched and they also painted in oils. In 1785 Lady Beaumont inherited the lease of 34 Grosvenor Square in London, which became the couple’s London home – a picture gallery was added in 1792 to accommodate their growing art collection. Lady Beaumont usually joined Sir George on his sketching tours of Europe, England and Wales. She was also interested in literature, philosophy, religion and mathematics and widely-read in Greek, Latin and French. The Beaumonts came to know Wordsworth and his family particularly well during their visits to the Lake District. They were also on very friendly terms with Southey, who wrote Lady Beaumont a number of letters of condolence after Sir George’s death.

Beddoes, Anna Maria (1773–1824). Daughter of the Irish educational writer and engineer, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744–1817; DNB) and younger sister of the novelist, Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849; DNB). In April 1794 she married Thomas Beddoes, an acquaintance of her father’s. The marriage produced two sons (including the poet, Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–1849; DNB) and two daughters but proved unhappy – Anna Maria Beddoes had at least three extra-marital relationships, including with Humphry Davy, and captured the highs and lows of these in her poems. After Beddoes’s death she was left in considerable financial difficulties. She died in Florence.

Beddoes, Thomas (1760–1808) DNB. Chemist and physician. Born at Shifnal, Shropshire, son of Richard Beddoes and Ann Whitehall. Educated at Bridgnorth Grammar School, by private tutor, and at Pembroke College, Oxford (matric. 1776, BA 1779, MB and MD 1786), and Edinburgh. Reader in Chemistry at Oxford from 1788. In the early 1790s, a growing reputation as a radical led to his surveillance by Home Office spies and failure to gain the Regius Chair in Chemistry. He left Oxford for Bristol in 1793 and married Anna Edgeworth, sister of the novelist Maria (1768–1849; DNB), in the following year. Beddoes was involved in the political protest movements of the mid-1790s and possibly first met Southey in 1795, during the latter’s immersion in Bristol politics. In 1799, Beddoes opened the Pneumatic Institute (from 1802 the Preventive Medical Institution for the Sick and Drooping Poor) in Hotwells, Bristol. Southey participated in the experiments with gases carried out by Beddoes and Humphry Davy, and recorded in Notice of Some Observations Made at the Medical Pneumatic Institution (1799). Beddoes was a prolific writer on medical, political and educational reform. He was also a poet: author of Alexander’s Expedition (1792) and a contributor to Southey’s Annual Anthology (1799). Southey respected Beddoes’s medical judgment, consulting him on more than one occasion. In 1809 he recorded that ‘From Beddoes I hoped for more good to the human race than from any other individual’. However, disagreements about poetry ensured that their personal relationship was not warm. Southey dismissed Beddoes as a ‘hypercritic of the Darwin school’ and was furious when his ‘Domiciliary Verses’ (a parody of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth and Southey) found its way into the first volume of the Annual Anthology. Joseph Cottle, who was responsible for the poem’s inclusion, was ordered by Southey not to solicit any further contributions from Beddoes.

Bedford family. The Bedford family lived at Westminster and Brixton. The household consisted of the parents, Charles (c. 1742–1814) and Mary Bedford, three sons (Grosvenor, Horace and Harry) and a cousin, Mary Page. Southey was on good terms with the entire family. He made use of the library in their Westminster home and wrote the first draft of Joan of Arc during an extended stay at their house in Brixton in summer 1793. Southey corresponded with Grosvenor and Horace.

Bedford, Grosvenor Charles (1773–1839). Civil servant and miscellaneous writer. The son of Charles Bedford (Deputy Usher of the Exchequer, as Horace Walpole’s substitute). Educated at Westminster School (adm. 1784), but did not attend university. Assistant clerk in the Exchequer Office, 1792–1803) clerk of the cash book, 1803–1806) clerk of the registers and issues, 1806–1822) chief clerk in the auditor’s office, 1822–1834. Admitted to Gray’s Inn, 26 January 1797. Bedford did not marry, despite regularly seeking Southey’s advice on his love affairs. Bedford and Southey met at Westminster School and their friendship endured for the remainder of their lives. Bedford had literary inclinations. He was involved in the ill-fated Flagellant (1792), contributed poems to the Monthly Magazine (1797) and the first volume of the Annual Anthology (1799), and privately published his translation of Musaeus, The Loves of Hero and Leander (1797). He worked with Southey on Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807) and contributed an unsigned notice of Southey’s Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814) to the Quarterly Review. His other publications included A Letter to the Right Hon. William Pitt on his Political Experiments (1804, anonymous) and a Memoir of Barré Charles Roberts (1814).

Bedford, Henry (‘Harry’) (c. 1782–1844). Henry Bedford was a Clerk in the Admiralty from 1804, rising to First Class Clerk in 1826–1844.  He was often referred to by Southey as 'the Master of the Rolls' or 'the Magister Rotulorum'. Henry was the only one of the Bedford brothers not to remain single. In 1826 he married Eliza Hore (dates unknown), a widow with three children. The couple had two further children, Henry-Charles-Grosvenor Bedford (1827–1880), who became civil servants, like his father and two uncles, and Mary-Frances Bedford (1829–1885). 

Bedford, Horace Walpole (c. 1776–1807). Civil servant and miscellaneous writer. The younger brother of Grosvenor Charles Bedford and named after his father’s patron. He was educated at Westminster School (adm. 1784), where his nickname was ‘the Doctor’ or ‘Dr. Johnson’. He did not attend university and later held a post at the British Museum. Like his older brother, he did not marry. Southey’s friendship with Horace began at school and their correspondence (though occasionally intermittent) lasted until at least 1797. Southey’s relationship with Horace was slightly different from that with Grosvenor Charles Bedford. He treated Horace as a younger brother: encouraging him and worrying about his tendency to laziness. He also fostered the younger man’s literary ambitions. Horace’s poems appeared in the Monthly Magazine (1797) and the Annual Anthology (1799).

Beesley, Alfred (1799/1800–1847). Antiquary. He was born into a Quaker family in Oxfordshire, though he later left the Society of Friends. He did not complete his apprenticeship to a watchmaker, instead devoting himself to literary and scientific pursuits. His Japheth: Contemplation and Other Pieces was published by Longman in 1834 and his History of Banbury appeared in 1841. In 1824 he wrote to Southey requesting information on the latter’s proposed life of George Fox (1624–1691; DNB), founder of the Religious Society of Friends. Southey’s reply explained why he had suspended the project.

Bell, Andrew (1753–1832) DNB. Scottish clergyman, the founder and tireless advocate of the ‘Madras’ system of schooling. When a chaplain in India, Bell introduced to the Madras Orphan Asylum the ‘monitorial’ system, wherein brighter children were charged with supervising groups of slower children, and all were motivated by a graduated scale of rewards and punishments. Returning to Britain, Bell promoted the system in a series of publications and attempted to have it instituted by a board of education controlled by the Church of England. From 1807 he engaged in a public dispute with the supporters of Joseph Lancaster, who promoted a version of his system outside Church control. Southey, at Bell’s request, supported his system in an 1811 Quarterly Review article and book, The Origin, Nature and Object of the New System of Education (1812). By 1832, Bell’s National Society for the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Christian Church was responsible for over 12000 schools in Britain and the empire. Bell continued to badger Southey for public support; after his death Southey, as his literary executor, worked on his biography. Completed by Caroline Bowles and Charles Cuthbert Southey, this was published in 1844 as The Life of the Rev. Andrew Bell.

Bell, John (c. 1747–1819). Prominent English merchant in Lisbon, admitted to the British Factory in 1774. Southey came to know him well during his visit to Portugal in 1800–1801. He appreciated Bell’s wide knowledge of the country and benefitted from his connections to Portuguese intellectual life. Bell’s special interest was numismatics.

Bell, John (1784–1864) DNB. 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.

Benson, Christopher (1788–1868). A native of Cockermouth, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A. 1809) and became a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1820, the first Hulsean Lecturer 1820–1822 and later Canon of Worcester Cathedral 1825–1868. Benson was a noted public speaker and Southey heard him preach during his 1820 visit to Cambridge. From this time they corresponded occasionally.

Betham, (Mary) Matilda (1776–1852) DNB. Writer and painter of miniatures. Her poetry was admired by Coleridge, who penned the complimentary ‘To Matilda Betham, from a Stranger’. Betham published Elegies (1797) and Poems (1808); Southey advised her about her poetry and sat to her for his portrait in 1808, as Coleridge also did. In 1809 Betham visited Greta Hall and painted Southey’s wife and children. Owing to the unconventionality of her conduct Betham’s family confined her in an asylum in 1819. Meeting her the following year, Southey declared her ‘perfectly sane in her conversation and manner, tho she has written me the maddest letters I ever saw’.

Bicknell, John Laurens (c. 1786–1845). Solicitor, author, Fellow of the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries. He was the son of John Bicknell (1746–1787), a barrister, and his wife Sabrina (1756/7–1843; DNB). Bicknell’s father was an associate of Thomas Day (1748–1789; DNB), with whom he co-wrote The Dying Negro (1773). Sabrina Bicknell’s association with Day was rather different. She was the subject of his failed attempt to educate a wife by applying the theories of Rousseau. After the death of her husband, Sabrina Bicknell worked for Charles Burney (1757–1817; DNB), at whose Greenwich school her two sons were educated. John Laurens Bicknell embarked on a legal career and became Solicitor to the Admiralty, succeeding his uncle in the post. His clients included, from 1828, John Soane (1753–1837; DNB). After the latter’s death, Bicknell became a trustee of the Soane Museum. Bicknell published on legal and political affairs and was an occasional poet. His works included Original Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1820) and The Modern Church: A Satirical Poem (1820). Bicknell was acquainted with Edward Hawke Locker and, via this connection, in the summer of 1823 wrote to Southey seeking his opinion of his latest work, probably The Hour of Trial; A Tragedy, published in 1824. Bicknell also sent presentation copies of this and his The Modern Church (1820) to Southey (no. 286 in the sale catalogue of his library).

Biddlecombe, Charles (dates unknown). Neighbour and friend. Biddlecombe met Southey in summer 1797 when the latter moved to the village of Burton in Hampshire. Southey described him as ‘rich enough to buy books, and very friendly, all that a neighbour should be’. Biddlecombe married in 1798, but his wife died in childbirth in March 1799, leaving him with an infant daughter. During Southey’s numerous absences, Biddlecombe appears to have looked after the cottage at Burton and when it was finally given up in 1802 arranged for a sale of part of the furniture and stored some of Southey’s possessions, including books, for a number of years. During his 1817 visit to France, Southey ran into Biddlecombe, whom he had not seen for several years, and his invalid daughter, describing the latter as ‘short and plethoric, with a countenance of prepossessing good nature’.

Biggs, Nathaniel (d. 1832). Printer and stationer in Bristol. He printed books, including works by Beddoes, Coleridge, Estlin and Southey, for congeries of publishers in London and the South-West of England. In the mid-late 1790s, he entered into a business partnership with Joseph Cottle, printing the Bristol edition of Coleridge and Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads (1798), and the revised editions of 1800 and 1802.

Bilderdijk, Willem (1756–1831). Dutch lawyer, poet, teacher, arch-conservative and a central figure in the intellectual life of the Netherlands in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. He greatly admired Southey’s poetry and his second wife, Katharina Schweickhardt (1776–1830), translated Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814) into Dutch in 1823–1824. When Southey visited the Netherlands in 1825 he was taken ill and the Bilderdijks nursed him at their home in Leiden. Southey was grateful for their kindness and consideration and publicly praised Bilderdijk on a number of occasions, most extensively in his ‘Epistle to Allan Cunningham’ (1829). Bilderdijk ordered all his papers, including Southey’s letters, to be destroyed after his death, so it is difficult to judge the extent of the two men’s correspondence.

Bill, Robert (c. 1790–1823). 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) (1769–1804), 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).

Blackwood, William (1776–1834) DNB. Edinburgh-based publisher whose firm, William Blackwood and Sons, became the leading Scottish publisher of the 1820s and 1830s. Blackwood’s career started in the antiquarian bookselling business, but gradually moved into publishing. His appointment, in 1811, as Edinburgh agent for John Murray gave him excellent links to the English book trade and English authors. In 1817 he founded a new Tory periodical – the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine. Within six months this was refounded as Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, which rapidly emerged as a major counterpart to the Edinburgh Review. Blackwood, travelling with Murray in the latter’s coach, visited Southey in Keswick in September 1818. Although his (and Murray’s) attempts to enlist Southey as a contributor to the new magazine failed, Blackwood and Southey did correspond occasionally. The publisher was more successful with Caroline Bowles. She contributed to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and published her other writings with Blackwood’s firm. This connection ensured that, after Southey’s death, Bowles chose Blackwood as the publisher of two works co-authored with her late husband: The Life of the Rev. Andrew Bell (1844) also co-authored with Cuthbert Southey) and Robin Hood: A Fragment; with Other Fragments and Poems (1847).

Blakeney, Robert (1758–1822). 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.

Blomfield, Charles James (1786–1857) DNB. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Greek scholar and clergyman. He was later Bishop of Chester, 1824–1828, and Bishop of London, 1828–1856. Southey met Blomfield in 1825 and the two men corresponded briefly.

Bloomfield, Robert (1766–1823) DNB. Brought up in Suffolk as a farmhand, Bloomfield became a shoemaker in London. His Georgic poem The Farmer’s Boy (1800) sold over 25,000 copies, and later collections Rural Tales (1802) and Wild Flowers (1806) also sold by the thousands. After 1813, owing to the bankruptcy of his publisher, Bloomfield was afflicted by poverty; Southey advised on schemes to raise money for his benefit. Bloomfield and Southey briefly corresponded in 1817.

Boucher, Jonathan (1738–1804) DNB. Schoolmaster, clergyman and lexicographer. Southey corresponded with him in 1802 concerning Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770; DNB).

Bounden, Joseph (fl. 1805–1824). Author whose works included Fatal Curiosity; or, the Vision of Silvester. A Poem (1805) and The Murderer, or, The Fall of Lecas: A Tale (1808). Bounden shared a publisher with Southey – Longman and his associates. He was also acquainted with John Abraham Heraud through the Philomathic Society and, via this connection, in August 1824 wrote to Southey, sending a copy of his most recent work, The Deserted City; Eva, a Tale in Two Cantos; and Other Poems (1824). By 1838 Bounden was being described as ‘the late Joseph Bounden’, but details of his life remain obscure.

Bowles, Caroline (1786–1854) DNB. Writer. Born in Hampshire, she was the only surviving child of Charles Bowles (1737–1801), a retired Captain in the East India service, and Ann Burrard (1753–1817). The continuing decline in her family’s finances was reflected in their move from Buckland Manor, Bowles’s birthplace, to the more modest Buckland Cottage. In 1818, Bowles, fearing that she would lose her home due to the mismanagement of her guardian, wrote to Southey asking his advice about publishing her poetry with the aim of earning much-needed cash. This initiated a correspondence that developed into close friendship and literary collaboration, and culminated in marriage on 4 June 1839. Although Bowles’s finances were in the event stabilised by an annuity from a Colonel Bruce, the ‘adopted’ son of her father, she did pursue a literary career. She contributed to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, and published poetry and prose, including Ellen Fitzarthur (1820), Solitary Hours (1826), Chapters on Churchyards (1829), The Cat’s Tail (1830), Tales of the Factories (1833) and The Birth–Day (1836). She also collaborated with Southey on an unfinished poem on ‘Robin Hood’, which applied the metre of the oriental romance Thalaba the Destroyer (1801) to an English subject. Bowles’s relationship with Southey has been the subject of recent debate, though the destruction of part of their correspondence, especially for the crucial period leading up to their marriage, makes it impossible to determine. Certainly their marriage proved unpalatable to three of Southey’s surviving children (Bertha, Kate and Cuthbert), and to some of his friends, including the Wordsworths. Edith May Southey, her husband John Wood Warter, and other friends, such as Landor, took Bowles’s side. Life at Greta Hall during Southey’s final years was uncomfortable, with the house divided between the warring factions. Southey’s ill health and memory loss meant that he was largely oblivious to what was going on around him. The feud continued after Southey’s death in 1843 and ensured the collapse of plans for Henry Taylor to produce a tombstone life of the Poet Laureate. Bowles returned to Hampshire, where in 1847 she published the fragmentary ‘Robin Hood’. She was awarded a pension from the civil list in 1852. On her death in 1854 she left her papers to Edith May and John Wood Warter.

Bowles, William Lisle (1762–1850) DNB. Church of England clergyman and poet, whose Fourteen Sonnets (1789) were a key contribution to the revival of the sonnet form and a major influence on Coleridge and Southey in the mid-1790s. Bowles was descended from a long line of clergymen and was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Oxford. He followed in his family’s tradition and was ordained. He became Vicar of Bremhill, Wiltshire in 1804, a chaplain to the Prince Regent in 1818 and a Canon of Salisbury Cathedral in 1828. His later poems did not find the same public favour as his earlier productions and he became better-known as a critic. His condemnation of the work of Alexander Pope attracted much notice and was rebutted by Byron in a Letter to John Murray (1821). Southey reviewed Bowles’s poem The Spirit of Discovery (1804) and later corresponded with him.

Bowring, John (1792–1872). Politician, diplomat and writer. He was the eldest son of the Exeter wool merchant Charles Bowring (1769–1856) and his wife Sarah Jane Anne (d. 1828). A Unitarian, he worked initially for his father’s wool business and then in the counting-house of Kennaway & Co. In 1811 he moved to London where he was employed by Milford & Co, suppliers to Wellington’s troops in the Iberian peninsula. Bowring travelled widely in Europe on company business. In 1823 his role as secretary of the London Greek Committee brought him into contact with Byron and also led to the onset of serious financial problems. He was an admirer of Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832; DNB). In 1824 the latter appointed Bowring as political editor of the recently founded Westminster Review. In later life Bowring fulfilled a wide range of roles, including MP for Bolton, British Consul at Canton, and Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Devon. Bowring, like Southey, was a gifted modern linguist. He published verse translations of Russian, Dutch, Polish, Serbian, Hungarian, and Czech poetry, and in 1824 he sent Southey a presentation copy of his latest production – Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain (1824).

Britton, John (1771–1857) DNB. 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.

Brockett, John Trotter (c. 1788–1842). Antiquary. Son of the County Durham lawyer and mathematician John Brockett (1764–1827) and Frances Sophia (c. 1770–1833). In 1814 he married Isabella (d. 1865), eldest daughter of the merchant John Bell. Brockett practised law in Newcastle and also cultivated his interests in numismatics, antiquities and philology. He was a member of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society and a founder member of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle Upon Tyne. He was also elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. Brockett’s publications included a Glossary of North Country Words, in Use: with Their Etymology, and Affinity to Other Languages; and Occasional Notices of Local Customs and Popular Superstitions (1825). He sent a presentation copy of this work to Southey.

Broome, Charlotte (1761–1838). Daughter of the musicologist Charles Burney (1726–1814; DNB) and his first wife Esther Sleepe (d. 1762), and younger sister of the novelist Fanny Burney (1752–1840: DNB) and of Southey’s friend James Burney. She married, firstly, the physician Clement Francis (c. 1744–1792) and, secondly, the stockjobber, pamphleteer and poet Ralph Broome (1742–1805). In 1818 Broome asked Southey for a poem commemorating her younger son Ralph Broome (1801–1817). The Poet Laureate normally disliked writing to order, but felt that this was a request he could not refuse. He produced an epitaph (‘Time and the World, whose magnitude and weight’), sent to Broome in February 1818 and later inscribed on a memorial to Ralph in St Swithun’s Church, Walcot, Bath. In 1829 Broome lost her eldest son, Clement Robert Francis (1792–1829), a Fellow of Caius College, Cambridge. Southey, who had met Francis in the Lake District, produced a second epitaph, ‘Some there will be to whom, as here they read’, for a memorial to him.

Brougham, Henry Peter, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) DNB; Hist P. The son of a Westmorland squire, Brougham grew up in Edinburgh and became one of the principal contributors to the Edinburgh Review. Brougham’s radical Whig opinions, expressed in the Edinburgh, provoked Scott and others into founding the Quarterly Review, for which Southey wrote scores of articles. Brougham’s politics also brought him into conflict with Southey at the Westmorland elections of 1818 and 1820, when, as a Whig candidate standing against the candidates of the Earl of Lonsdale, whom Southey and Wordsworth supported, Brougham attacked the influence in the nation of aristocrats and their placemen. Brougham also attacked Southey from the hustings during the 1818 election as a supporter of the Lonsdale cause. This incident led Southey to harbour a life-long dislike for Brougham, and he had to be dissuaded from publishing a pamphlet in response. Brougham was intermittently an MP from 1810 onwards and served as Lord Chancellor 1830–1834.

Browne, Elizabeth (née Jones; dates unknown). The second wife of Wade Browne, by whom she had one daughter, Mary (1810–1892).

Browne, Elizabeth (dates unknown). 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.

Browne, Sarah (1793/1794–1860s). A daughter of Wade Browne by his first wife. In 1823 she married Charles Collins Crump (c. 1790–1876), Rector of Halford, Warwickshire from 1826. Southey visited the Browne family home in Ludlow when she was a young woman and later corresponded with her.

Browne, Wade (1760–1821). Wealthy woollen merchant, who was Mayor of Leeds in 1791 and 1804, Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for Yorkshire. He retired to Ludlow in 1807 and Southey came to know him in 1808 when Browne and his family spent one of several summers in the Lakes. The two continued to correspond until Browne’s death.

Bruce, William (fl. 1800s-1820s). Captain in the Bombay Marine service of the East India Company and British Resident at Bushire in Iran 1803–1807, 1808–1822. He met Southey at Buckland, the home of Caroline Bowles, and in 1826 sent Southey a case of Shiraz wine, for which Southey thanked him.

Bruguière, Antoine André, Baron de Sorsum (1773–1823). 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.

Brydges, (Samuel) Egerton, 1st Baronet (1762–1837) DNB; Hist P. Poet, editor and bibliographer who issued neglected literary works from his private press. Brydges compiled ‘Censura literaria’, containing titles, abstracts, and opinions of old English books, with original disquisitions, articles of biography, and other literary antiquities (1805–1809). Southey, who shared his interest in English literary history, initiated a correspondence with Brydges in 1807.

Bunbury, Charles John (1772–1798). 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.

Bunbury, Henry Edward, 7th Baronet (1778–1860) DNB. Army officer, uncle of Southey’s schoolfriend, Charles John Bunbury, and member of Southey’s circle in the Lake District. Bunbury was Under–Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1809–1816 and provided Southey with information for his History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).

Bunbury, Henry William (1750–1811) DNB. Artist and caricaturist. He was the father of Southey’s schoolfriend from Westminster, Charles John Bunbury. In later life he settled in Keswick and from 1805 until his death became part of Southey’s social circle.

Burdett, Francis, 5th Baronet (1770–1844) DNB; Hist P. Burdett was descended from a long line of Midlands landowners and inherited a Baronetcy from his grandfather, Sir Robert Burdett (1716–1797) in 1797. He acquired further wealth from his marriage to Sophia Coutts (1775–1844), a banking heiress, in 1793. Burdett first entered Parliament in 1796 and was MP for Boroughbridge 1796–1802, Middlesex 1802–1804 and 1805–1806, Westminster 1807–1837 and Wiltshire North 1837–1844. He soon gained fame as an opponent of the war with France, a supporter of Radicals and an advocate of universal suffrage. Southey had briefly overlapped with Burdett at Westminster School and was initially fairly positive in his view of him, but became increasingly hostile in 1811–1812 as his fears of revolution increased.

Burnett, George (c. 1776–1811) DNB. Writer. The son of John Burnett, a farmer, of Huntspill, Somerset. Educated at Balliol College, Oxford (matric. 1793). His varied career included time spent as a student at a dissenting academy in Manchester, pastor to a Unitarian congregation in Great Yarmouth, medical student at the University of Edinburgh, assistant to John Rickman, domestic tutor to the sons of Lord Stanhope, assistant surgeon to a militia regiment, and (in Poland) tutor to the family of Count Stanislaw Kostka Zamoyski (1775–1856), a Polish nobleman, politician and patron of arts, after which Southey referred to him as ‘the Count’. Burnett was also a professional writer, whose works included View of the Present State of Poland (1807) from essays originally published in the Monthly Magazine, Specimens of English Prose Writers (1807) a companion to George Ellis’s Specimens of the Early English Poets and Extracts from the Prose Works of Milton (1809). Southey met Burnett at Balliol and the two became friends. Burnett was one of the originators of Pantisocracy and in true Pantisocratic spirit proposed to Martha Fricker, who turned him down. In 1795, he shared lodgings with Southey and Coleridge in Bristol. From 1797–1798, he was minister to a Unitarian congregation in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, where he also tutored Henry Herbert Southey. Burnett moved in metropolitan literary circles and was friendly with Charles Lamb and John Rickman. His relationship with Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge became deeply ambivalent — by 1803 he was accusing both of treating him badly. Burnett was an opium addict and his last years were probably spent in poverty. He died in the Marylebone Infirmary.

Burney, James (1750–1821) DNB. 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.

Busk, Hans (1772–1862) DNB. 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.

Butler, Charles (1750–1832) DNB. Leading Catholic layman, lawyer and writer, especially on legal matters. In 1791 he became the first Catholic called to the Bar since the Revolution of 1688) he was closely involved in attempts to secure Catholic Emancipation from parliament. Southey met him in 1811 and found him ‘thoroughly amiable’. However, he replied to Southey’s Book of the Church (1824) with a defence of Catholicism, The Book of the Catholic Church (1825). This in turn provoked Southey’s Vindiciae Ecclesiae Anglicanae (1826).

Butler, Eleanor Charlotte (1739–1829) DNB. 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.

Butt, John Marten (1774–1846). 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.

Byron, George Gordon, 6th Baron Byron (1788–1824) DNB. Best-selling poet. His father, John Byron (1757–1791), was an army officer who squandered the inheritance of Byron’s mother, Catherine Gordon. At the age of ten, Byron inherited the title of Baron Byron of Rochdale and Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire from his great-uncle. Byron was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, and composed poetry from childhood. His attacks on his contemporaries (including Southey) in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809) made him well-known, despite the work’s anonymity. After a Grand Tour in the Mediterranean 1809–1811, Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812) began a run of highly popular, if controversial, publications. His marriage to an heiress, Annabella Milbanke (1792–1860), in 1815 proved disastrous almost from the beginning and Byron’s debts and the host of scandals in which he was embroiled (including accusations of incest with his half-sister) led him to leave England for good in 1816. Byron settled in Italy and continued to publish controversial works, especially Don Juan (1819), whose suppressed (but widely-circulated) ‘Preface’ fiercely criticised Southey. Southey responded by accusing Byron in A Vision of Judgement (1821) of leading a Satanic school of writers which corrupted readers’ morality. Further criticism from Byron led Southey to publish a public defence in a letter to the Courier in January 1822. Byron, in Italy, thought of returning to Britain to challenge Southey to a duel; but his challenge was never delivered and instead he mercilessly – and hilariously – satirised the Poet Laureate in The Vision of Judgment (1822). Southey did not publicly respond to this attack. Byron left for Greece in 1823 to support the country’s war of independence against the Ottoman Empire and died there the following year. The acrimony of the years 1819–1822 was not the whole story of the Byron-Southey relationship, though. Byron had earlier been influenced by Southey’s Oriental romances and continued to admire Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814).

Cadell, Thomas (1773–1836) DNB. 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).

Calvert, John Mitchinson (1802–1842). The eldest son of William Calvert. He became a doctor and friend of the Scottish writer John Sterling (1806–1844; DNB), and through Sterling, made the acquaintance of Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881; DNB) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873; DNB). Calvert suffered from tuberculosis and died at Falmouth on his way to Madeira.

Calvert, William (1771–1829) 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.

Campbell, Henry (‘Horse’) (1774–1846). Clergyman. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1792). A university friend of Southey’s, they did not keep in touch in later life. Their last meeting was at Falmouth in 1801, when Campbell was on his way to take up the living of St John’s in Antigua. Campbell was the illegitimate son of Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston (1739–1802) and swiftly returned from Antigua to England when he received a considerable legacy at his father’s death. Southey was later dismayed to find that Campbell had become an evangelical and fallen out with the Church authorities. He served as curate of Bicton in Shropshire, Minister of the Chapel at Nailsworth, Gloucestershire and, finally, Minister of St John’s Chapel, Uxbridge.

Canning, George (1770–1827) DNB; Hist P. 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. Southey wrote directly to Canning in 1817 urging him to take action against the radical press. From 1822 to April 1827 Canning was again Foreign Secretary, and from April to August 1827, Prime Minister.

Carlisle, Anthony (1768–1840) DNB. Surgeon and anatomist. Born at Stillington, Durham, the third son of Thomas Carlisle and his first wife Barbara (d. 1768). Studied medicine in York, Durham and London, and was appointed surgeon to the Westminster Hospital in 1793. He married Martha Symmons in 1800 and in the same year was one of the founding members of the Royal College of Surgeons, serving as its president in 1829 and 1839. He moved in metropolitan literary and scientific circles, attending Mary Wollstonecraft on her death-bed in 1797. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1804, held the post of Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy from 1808 and later that of surgeon-extraordinary to the Prince Regent. Carlisle was knighted when George IV acceded to the throne. Carlisle and Southey met in c. 1795, probably through their mutual friend Grosvenor Charles Bedford. In c. 1798 Carlisle, Southey and John May collaborated on a scheme for a convalescent asylum to assist the poor after their discharge from hospital. Carlisle attended Southey’s mother in her last illness in 1801–1802, but after Southey settled in Keswick the two men saw much less of each other. Although Carlisle and Southey corresponded, their letters to one another seem not to have survived.

Cattermole, Richard (1795?-1858). Writer and Anglican clergyman. He married Maria Frances Giles in 1825. Coleridge, whom Cattermole knew through the Royal Society of Literature, stood as godfather to their son, George Richard Coleridge Cattermole (bap. 1828). Cattermole was secretary to the Royal Society of Literature from 1823–1852 and in 1843 became one of the first members of the newly established Society of British Authors. Cattermole’s own writings encompassed theology, literature, art and history. Cattermole corresponded with Southey in his professional capacity as secretary to the Royal Society of Literature when, in 1826, it elected the Poet Laureate an Honorary Associate.

Cawood, John (d. 1846). Tory ironfounder from Leeds. He took an active interest in issues relating to the poor and in 1819 was part of a delegation sent by the Leeds Poor Law authority to inspect Robert Owen’s New Lanark mills. He later (1844) became the first chairman of the new poor law authority in Leeds. In 1819 he wrote to Southey, sending a pamphlet he had written on the condition of the poor, probably A Plain Statement, Exhibiting the Whole of What Has Been Hyperbolically Designated, The Parish Controversy (1819).

do Cenáculo, Manuel (1724–1814). 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.

Chantrey, Sir Francis Legatt (1781–1841). English sculptor, who became the most well-known and fashionable practitioner in his field in the Regency era. Chantrey was the son of a small farmer from Derbyshire and started his career as a portrait painter, concentrating on sculpture from 1807 onwards. In 1809 he married a wealthy cousin, Mary Ann Wale (1787–1875), enabling him to move into a house and studio in Pimlico. From 1811–1812 onwards he was immensely successful and by 1822 could charge 200 guineas for a bust. Southey greatly admired Chantrey’s Sleeping Children, which he saw at the Royal Academy in 1817, and Chantrey sent Southey a copy of his bust of Wordsworth in 1822. Another connection between the two men was Allan Cunningham, who was Chantrey’s Clerk of Works and had written to Southey for advice on his poetry in 1819, the two men later becoming friends. Chantrey asked Southey to sit for him as early as 1823 and Southey did so in 1828, when John Murray, his publisher, commissioned Chantrey to produce a bust of Southey. However, both Chantrey and Southey were dissatisfied with the outcome. The bust remained at Chantrey’s studio, though it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1837. It was bought by the National Portrait Gallery in 1955.

Chapman, John [i.e. John Chapman and Co.]. Merchant shipping company, whose offices were at 2 Leadenhall Street, London. In 1822 Southey used them to send a consignment of books to Copenhagen. Southey addressed his letter of 11 October 1822 to John Chapman, in the belief that the firm was still headed by its founder, John Chapman ‘of Whitby’ (1732–1822), though he had died on 5 January 1822. This Chapman was a Quaker and originally a supplier of canvas for sails, but his firm expanded under his ten sons into a leading shipping agent, insurer and bank.

Charlotte Augusta of Wales, Princess (1796–1817) DNB. The only child of the union of George, then Prince of Wales, and Caroline of Brunswick (1768–1821; DNB). Her parents separated at her birth and Charlotte was thereafter often used in their ongoing battles. She married Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (1790–1865) on 2 May 1816. They established their home at Claremont, near Esher, Surrey. She died in the early hours of 6 November 1817 after delivering a stillborn son and was buried at St George’s Chapel, Windsor on 19 November. Her death was the subject of national mourning and also precipitated a rush to the altar amongst her bachelor uncles in an attempt to produce a legitimate heir to the throne. In his role as Poet Laureate, Southey celebrated her marriage in The Lay of the Laureate (1816). He commemorated her demise in ‘Lines written upon the Death of the Princess Charlotte’ and ‘Funeral Song for the Princess Charlotte’, both written in late 1817, but unpublished until 1828 and 1829 respectively.

Charter, Louisa (b. 1776). Sister of Emma Peachy and Elizabeth Charter (1782–1860), the friend and correspondent of George Crabbe (1754–1832; DNB). The three sisters were the daughters of Thomas Charter (1741–1810), a solicitor and estate manager, and Elizabeth Malet (1748–1804), of Bishops Lydeard, Somerset, a family known to Southey’s Aunt Mary, who lived nearby in Taunton. Southey first met Louisa Charter in Keswick in 1804. Louisa and Elizabeth Charter stayed at William Peachy’s house on Derwent Island in 1823 and then travelled south to London with Robert Southey and his daughter, Edith May Southey, of whom they saw a great deal in London as Edith May was often in the company of Lady Susanna Malet, née Wales (1779–1868), widow of Sir Charles Malet, 1st Baronet (1752–1815 DNB, maternal uncle of the Charter sisters.

Clarke, Adam (1762–1832). Wesleyan Methodist minister and scholar. Born in County Londonderry, Ireland, he was the son of an Anglican schoolmaster and his Presbyterian wife. He became a follower of John Wesley (1703–1791; DNB) in 1779 and was later a prominent Methodist. An autodidact and gifted linguist, Clarke’s wide-ranging interests encompassed Persian, Arabic, Hindu, Coptic and Sanskrit texts, alchemy, the occult, astronomy, folk tales, mineralogy and conchology. His numerous publications included translations, a six-volume survey of the most important books in ten ancient languages, a multi-volume collection of English translations from the classics (1803–1806), The Use and Misuse of Tobacco (1797) and works on scripture and theology. In 1788 he married Mary Cooke (1760–1836), daughter and heiress of a wealthy clothier, and in his later years lived in some affluence. He died in 1832, a victim of the national cholera epidemic. Clarke was appointed as a Methodist preacher in Bristol in 1798 and initially met Southey, and Humphry Davy, there in 1800 at the home of Charles Fox (1740?–1809; DNB). In 1821 Clarke was commissioned by the Methodist Conference to produce a new biography of John Wesley, partly in response to Southey’s work of the previous year, but instead Clarke published a two-volume Memoirs of the Wesley Family: Collected Principally from Original Documents (1823). Clarke wrote to Southey a few times, including in 1826 to congratulate him on his Vindicæ Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ. Letters to Charles Butler, Esq. comprising Essays on the Romish Religion and Vindicating The Book of the Church (1826) and to suggest further sources for attacking the Catholic Church. Southey also possessed a number of Clarke’s works and admired him as ‘the most learned man the Methodists have ever had among them’.

Clarkson, Catherine (née Buck; 1772–1856) DNB. 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.

Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846) DNB. Campaigner for the abolition of the slave trade, and a friend of the Wordsworths, Coleridge and Southey. He moved to the Lake District in 1794 and lived in retirement at Eusemere, near Pooley Bridge, Ullswater, until 1806. Clarkson and his wife returned to her native Suffolk in 1806, and remained there until his death. He returned to the campaign against the slave trade in 1804 and wrote ceaselessly in the cause until the passing of the 1833 Act abolishing slavery in the British empire. He also wrote admiringly of the Quakers.

Clercq, Willem de (1795–1844). Poet and important figure in the Réveil, the anti-modernist spiritual revival in the Dutch Reformed Church of the Netherlands, which also included de Clercq’s friend, Willem Bilderdijk. He was born in Amsterdam, the child of wealthy grain merchants and studied French, German and Greek with the intention of becoming a preacher, but his ambitions were thwarted by the French invasion of 1813. De Clercq then travelled in northern Germany and the Baltic and visited St Petersburg in 1816, returning home in 1817 to manage the family grain business and marry Caroline Boissevain (1799–1879). In 1824 he moved to The Hague to become secretary of the Netherlands Trading Society. In this role he attempted to put into practice his preference for small-scale industries over the factories that he perceived as harmful to workers. In later life he fell into a serious depression and died in 1844. De Clercq and Southey corresponded in 1824 when de Clercq sent him Katherina Bilderdijk’s (1776–1830) Rodrigo de Goth, Koning van Spanje (1823–1824), a Dutch translation of Southey’s Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814).

Cobbett, William (1763–1835 DNB. 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.

Colburn, Henry (1784/5–1855 DNB. 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.

Coleridge, (David) Hartley (1796–1849) DNB. Eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Sarah Fricker; and Southey’s nephew, nicknamed ‘Job’ for his seriousness as a child. Southey played a considerable part in Hartley’s upbringing after his father separated from his mother, leaving his children in Southey’s care at Greta Hall. In 1808 Hartley was sent to Ambleside School and in 1815 Southey was able to organise sufficient donations from friends and family to allow Hartley to proceed to Merton, College, Oxford. He proved a brilliant, if erratic scholar, and though he gained a Fellowship at Oriel College this was forfeited in 1820, much to the distress of his family. After some time as a writer in London, Hartley moved back to the Lake District in 1823, initially to teach in his old school. He then moved to Grasmere and finally to Rydal, continuing to write poetry and criticism, though his life was increasingly blighted by alcohol dependency.

Coleridge, Derwent (1800–1883) DNB. 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.

Coleridge, George (1764–1828). Clergyman and schoolmaster. The elder brother of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Southey and George Coleridge were — especially later in life, when the latter acknowledged Southey’s services to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s family — on terms of mutual respect.

Coleridge, Henry Nelson (1798–1843) DNB. Nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and later the editor of his works, including, most importantly, Table Talk (1835). Henry Nelson was a barrister, classical scholar and contributor to the Quarterly Review. He is now best known as the husband of his cousin, Sara Coleridge, whom he married in 1829.

Coleridge, John Taylor (1790–1876) DNB. 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.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772–1834) DNB. Poet, critic, philosopher and Southey’s brother-in-law. His complex — at times passionate — four-decade relationship with Coleridge had a major impact both on Southey’s life and on his critical posterity. It began in Oxford in summer 1794 when Robert Allen introduced Southey to a visitor from Cambridge — Coleridge. It was a fateful meeting, leading to the failed scheme of Pantisocracy, literary collaboration, and — eventually — mutual disenchantment. As Southey later recorded: ‘that meeting fixed the future fortunes of us both ... Coleridge had at that time thought little of politics, in morals he was as loose ... as men at a university usually are, but he was a Unitarian. my morals were of the sternest Stoicism ... that same feeling which made me a poet kept me pure ... Our meeting was mutually serviceable, — I reformed his life, & he disposed me toward Xtianity’. It was Coleridge who induced Southey to come north and live at Greta Hall in 1803. In 1804 he left Keswick for Malta and Italy for the sake of his health, returning in 1806, after which he separated from his wife, leaving her and his daughter Sara at Greta Hall and taking his sons Hartley and Derwent to be educated at Ambleside, near the Wordsworths, with whom he lived. During 1807 and 1808 he was in London, lecturing and writing for the Courier, which duly puffed Southey’s work. In 1808 he planned, with assistance from Southey, a new journal The Friend, editing this from Grasmere from 1809 to 1810, with Southey’s help as a proofreader. In 1810 he quarrelled with Wordsworth and moved south. His last visit to the Lake District was in 1812. His relationship with Southey, though distant, was never broken and Southey continued to provide for his wife and children.

Coleridge, Sara (1802–1852) DNB. Youngest child and only daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Sarah Fricker; and Southey’s niece. Translator, writer and indefatigable editor of her father’s works. Sara Coleridge grew up at Greta Hall; her father was absent for most of her childhood, and she was mainly educated by Southey, her mother and her aunt, Mary Lovell. She showed an early talent for languages, becoming a fluent reader of Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Her first publication was a translation of Martin Dobrizhoffer’s History of the Abipones (1822), a project that was originally intended to be a joint work with her brother, Derwent Coleridge, and which Southey had first suggested. Sara Coleridge undertook a prolonged tour of family and friends in her mother’s company in 1822–1823 and became secretly engaged to her first cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge. The couple finally married in 1829, moving to first Hampstead and then Chester Place, Regent’s Park. Sara Coleridge’s health had never been robust, and she suffered a number of miscarriages; only two of her children, Herbert (1830–1861) and Edith (1832–1911) survived. With Henry Nelson Coleridge, who died in 1843, she began editing her father’s collected works, though she is better known today for her own writings, especially Phantasmion, A Fairy Tale (1837).

Coleridge, Sara(h). See Fricker, Sarah (1770–1845)

Coleridge, William Hart (1789–1849) DNB. 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.

Collins, Charles (c.1777–1806?). School friend. The son of William Collins and his wife Sarah Astell of Maize Hill, Greenwich, Kent. Educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford (matric. Jan 1793). Married Jane Forman, by whom he had one son. Died c. 1806. Collins’s biography is difficult to reconstruct as Records of Old Westminsters and Alumni Oxoniensis both confuse him with his son, also named Charles Collins, and give a later date of death. A note, now in the Huntington Library, written by an eponymous descendant confirms that he died young. In 1815, Southey referred to Collins’s widow and in 1828 described him as long dead. Southey met Collins at Westminster and later described him as ‘one of my most intimate school and college friends’. However, by early 1794 their friendship had cooled and they seem to have had no contact with one another after Southey’s departure from Oxford later that year.

Collins, Jeremiah (1774–1853). Clergyman. Educated at Balliol College, Oxford (BA 1794). He eventually returned to his native Cornwall, where he became chaplain of the Truro Infirmary. He and Southey were friends for a short time in Oxford, but by mid-1794 they were permanently estranged.

Combe, Edward (c. 1773/4–1848). 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.

Conder, Josiah (1789–1855) DNB. Started life in his father’s booksellers’ business, which he inherited and ran 1811–1819. However, he became better known as an industrious writer, editor and compiler, particularly of works on Nonconformist themes, and as owner and editor of the Eclectic Review, 1814–1837. In 1815 he married the poet Joan Elizabeth Thomas (c. 1786–1877) who wrote as ‘Eliza Thomas’. Southey admired the Associate Minstrels (1810), a collection by Conder and his friends, and arranged for some of the contributors’ work to appear in the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1810 (1812), though he was annoyed by the exclusion of Conder’s poem, ‘Reverie’. Subsequently, Conder wrote to Southey for advice about the Eclectic Review and his other publications and the two developed a regular correspondence.

Copleston, Edward (1776–1849) DNB. Fellow and then Provost of Oriel College, Oxford, and Bishop of Llandaff 1827–1849. Copleston was a writer on theological, social and economic subjects, from a liberal Tory viewpoint, and a leading figure in Oxford University. He gained Southey’s approval through his Three Replies to the Calumnies of the Edinburgh Review (1810–1811), which attacked the Edinburgh Review’s criticism of Oxford’s teaching.

Corry, Isaac (1753–1813) DNB; Hist P. 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.

Cottle family. The children of Robert Cottle, an unsuccessful Bristol tailor and draper. The family included Amos, Joseph and Robert (?1780–1858), a painter and founder of his own religious sect (‘the Cottlelites’), and five sisters, Elizabeth (c. 1764–1789), Mary (?1772–1839), Ann (?1780–1855), Sarah (d. 1834) and Martha (c. 1785–1800). Southey seems to have been acquainted with the entire Cottle family. After their secret marriage in November 1795, his wife Edith lived with the Cottle sisters for some of the time Southey was absent in Spain and Portugal.

Cottle, Amos Simon (1768?–1800) DNB. Poet and translator. Elder brother of Joseph Cottle. Educated at the school run by Richard Henderson (1736/7–1792) at Hanham, near Bristol, and Magdalene College, Cambridge (matric. 1795, BA 1799). He then embarked on a legal training. He spent the final year of his life in London, where he was a friend of George Dyer and Charles Lamb, and died in his chambers at Clifford’s Inn. Author of Icelandic Poetry, or, The Edda of Saemund, Translated into English verse (1797) published by Joseph Cottle and with a dedicatory poem by Southey). Several of his other poems were collected posthumously in the fourth edition of Joseph Cottle, Malvern Hills, With Minor Poems and Essays (1829). Southey probably met Amos Cottle through his younger brother Joseph. The two shared an interest in Scandinavian literature and mythology and it was Southey who encouraged Amos to produce a verse, rather than prose, translation of the Edda and who reviewed it in the Critical Review.

Cottle, Joseph (1770–1853) DNB. Bristolian author, bookseller and publisher. Although Coleridge’s biographer James Dykes Campbell joked ‘I never heard of ... [Cottle’s] having ... any [parents], and think it very doubtful. I should think he was found under a booksellers counter wrapped in Felix Farley’s newspaper’, Joseph was in fact the second child of Robert and Sarah Cottle. He was educated at the school run by Richard Henderson (1736/7–1792) at Hanham, near Bristol. In 1791 he opened a shop as a printseller, stationer, binder and bookseller in Bristol. Cottle abandoned bookselling in 1798 but continued publishing. Between 1791 and 1800, he sold, printed or published 114 works, in congeries with Joseph Johnson, Benjamin Flower, H. D. Symons and others. In 1800 he began to sell his copyrights to the London firm of Longman. A poet and prose writer, his works included: Poems (1795), Malvern Hills (1798) with a prefatory poem by Southey), Alfred (1800), The Fall of Cambria (1808), Early Recollections, Chiefly Relating to the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, During his Long Residence in Bristol (1837) and Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (1847). Cottle and Southey were introduced by Robert Lovell in 1794. Although not wealthy, Cottle provided generous financial help to Southey throughout the 1790s, even lending him money for his wedding ring. He published Joan of Arc and the majority of Southey’s earliest works, including Poems (1797) and Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal (1797). His professional collaboration with Southey also included contributing poems to the Annual Anthology and co-editing the works of their fellow Bristolian Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770; DNB). What Cottle did not know, was that Southey viewed his poetry with a merriment that verged on contempt. The two men met less frequently after Southey’s move to Keswick in 1803, but maintained their correspondence. Southey’s final tour of the West Country in 1836–1837 included a visit to Cottle in Bristol. After Southey’s death, Cottle was a central figure in the successful campaign to erect a monument to his memory in Bristol cathedral. He recorded his association with Southey for posterity in his controversial Reminiscences (1847), itself a reworking of the equally contentious Early Recollections (1837).

Courtenay, Thomas Peregrine (1782–1841) DNB; Hist P. 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).

Coxe, William (1748–1828) DNB. 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.

Craufurd, Charles Gregan (1761–1821) DNB; Hist P. Distinguished army officer, who rose to the rank of Lieutenant-General. He was the MP for East Retford 1806–1812. Southey corresponded with him about the History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832) and revised his inscription ‘For the Walls of Ciudad Rodrigo’ to commemorate the actions of Craufurd’s brother, Robert (1764–1812) DNB), who was killed when storming the city.

Croft, Herbert, 5th Baronet (1751–1816) DNB; Hist P. 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.

Croker, John Wilson (1780–1857) DNB; Hist P. Irish Protestant politician and writer. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and called to the Irish Bar in 1802. In 1807 he was elected MP for Downpatrick and became Secretary to the Admiralty 1809–1830. He was a close friend of Wellington and, particularly, of Peel. Croker was a prolific writer of light verse and often acted as an intermediary between the government and the literary world – he played a key role in making changes to Southey’s early Odes as Poet Laureate. He also contributed regularly to the Quarterly Review, where his hostile review of Keats’s Endymion was alleged to have hastened the poet’s death. In the 1830s and 1840s he was seen as one of Peel’s key supporters and was satirised in both Disraeli’s Coningsby and Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Southey admired some of Croker’s verse, but his attitude was tinged with reserve, as he was well aware of Croker’s connections and influence in literary and political life.

Crothers, Mrs (dates and first name unknown). A Keswick neighbour of the Southeys. She lived opposite the Vicarage of Crosthwaite Church and was a regular visitor to the Southey household in the 1810s and 1820s.

Cunningham, Allan (1784–1842) DNB; Hist P. Poet, songwriter, and periodical writer. Cunningham, the son of a Dumfriesshire factor, was immersed in the literary culture of the Scottish borders. As a youth, he heard Robert Burns (1759–1796; DNB) recite and later walked in Burns’ funeral procession; visited James Hogg (who became a friend); and walked to Edinburgh to catch sight of Walter Scott. The Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song (1811), whose ‘old’ poems were actually modern compositions by Cunningham, attracted attention. It was followed by a series of volumes, including Songs, Chiefly in the Rural Language of Scotland (1813), Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry (1822), The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern (1825), The Maid of Elvar (1833) and Lord Roldon (1836). He also published the Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1829–1833) and the Works of Robert Burns; with His Life (1834). He contributed to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, the London Magazine, and the Athenaeum, and in 1829 produced an annual, The Anniversary. From 1814–1841, his literary work was fitted around his position as secretary to the sculptor Francis Chantrey (1781–1841; DNB). Southey and Cunningham held one another in mutual high regard. They met socially, corresponded and, in 1829, the Poet Laureate contributed an ‘Epistle from Robert Southey, Esq. to Allan Cunningham’ to The Anniversary.

Dallas, Alexander Robert Charles (1791–1869) DNB. 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).

Dalrymple, Hew Whitefoord, 1st Baronet (1750–1830) DNB. 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).

Danvers, Charles (c. 1764–1814). Bristol wine merchant, trading under the name Danvers and White. He was distantly related to the regicides Sir John Danvers (1584/5–1655 DNB) and General Thomas Harrison (c. 1616–60; DNB) and to the diarist Celia Fiennes (1662–1741; DNB). (Southey possessed a manuscript of Fiennes diary which he had been given by the Danvers family and included unacknowledged excerpts from it in his and Coleridge’s Omniana (1812).) Danvers’ father had ‘been a person of some property’, though the family’s fortunes had since declined. Danvers seems to have had two brothers and two sisters. He never married. A Unitarian, he died in London ‘during a short tarriance there’ and was buried in Asplands Burial Ground, Hackney. Danvers knew Southey from childhood. In 1797, their friendship flourished when Southey and his wife lodged in a house in Kingsdown, next door to Danvers and his mother. In 1799, Southey finished the fifteen book version of Madoc in Mrs Danvers’ ‘parlour on her little table’. When Southey went to Portugal in 1800–1, he left a copy of his poetic magnum opus with Danvers and also delegated the task of collecting materials for the third Annual Anthology to him and Davy. This volume did not appear. Danvers visited Southey at Keswick in summer 1805 and kept a journal of his tour, now in the British Library, Add MS 30929. Extracts from this were published in Kenneth Curry, ‘A note on Wordsworth’s “Fidelity”’, Philological Quarterly, 32 (1953), 212–214.

Danvers, Mrs. (d. 1803). 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.’

Dauncey, Louisa (dates unknown). Eldest daughter of Philip Dauncey K.C. (1759–1819) and his wife Marie (Mary) (1769–1804), daughter of Elizabeth Dolignon, who had acted in loco parentis during Southey’s time at Westminster School. Louisa married Robert Bill, an admirer of Southey’s poetry, in 1820. As Southey had known both her parents, in 1819 he wrote to her, commiserating on the death of her father, which he had read about in the newspapers.

Davey, John (d. 1798). Master of Balliol College, Oxford 1785–1798.

Davy, Humphry (1778–1829) DNB. Born in Penzance, son of Robert Davy, a woodcarver. Educated at Penzance and Truro grammar schools and apprenticed to an apothecary-surgeon in Truro. Davy had wide interests as a young man, writing poetry as well as conducting chemical experiments on the nature of heat, light and acidity. In October 1798 he went to Bristol to work for Thomas Beddoes at his Pneumatic Institution, which opened in March 1799. Davy soon became friendly with Southey and Coleridge, and they both participated in his experiments with nitrous oxide, or ‘laughing gas’. Southey published some of Davy’s early poems in the Annual Anthology (1799) and (1800) and suggested Davy should write a poem on Mango Capac, the first Inca, after Southey had failed in his plan to identify Madoc with the Inca ruler. In January 1801 Davy moved to London, and Southey saw much less of him. Davy worked at the Royal Institution, where he became a Professor in 1802. In 1807 he made a series of experiments there, using the Voltaic pile to isolate previously unknown elements including potassium and sodium. This work was regarded as a brilliant contribution to Britain’s scientific reputation; Southey, while recognising Davy’s genius, thought that he became vain and over-assiduous to win the approval of polite society. Davy was elected President of the Royal Society in 1820.

Davy, Jane (1780–1855) DNB. Wealthy widow, socialite and distant cousin of Walter Scott. She married Humphry Davy on 11 April 1812.

Dawes, John (c. 1765–1845). Perpetual Curate of Ambleside, 1805–1845, and schoolmaster. His pupils included Hartley and Derwent Coleridge.

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

Deacon, Mr and Mrs. Friends of Grosvenor Charles Bedford and his family.

De Quincey, Thomas (1785–1859) DNB. Writer, essayist and literary critic, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821). De Quincey was the son of a successful merchant and was born in Manchester. A brilliant scholar as a child, his schooling was erratic, and though he entered Worcester College, Oxford in 1803, he did not take his degree. A passionate admirer of Wordsworth and Coleridge, he lived at Wordsworth’s former home, Dove Cottage, Grasmere, from 1809–1819, when he came to know Southey. De Quincey married Margaret Simpson (d. 1837), the daughter of a Rydal famer in 1817, and the couple had eight children. While he lived at Dove Cottage, he was forced to devote himself to literary work to try and earn a living, as the inheritance he received in 1806 was soon spent. His political views were reactionary, and he briefly edited the Westmorland Gazette, the Tory paper in Kendal in 1818–1819. De Quincey’s life was blighted by opium addiction and debt. He moved to London in 1821 and began to regularly contribute to literary periodicals, achieving huge success when Confessions of an English Opium-Eater appeared initially in the London Magazine. De Quincey soon moved to Scotland, where he lived for the rest of his life. Between 1835 and 1849 he published a series of important memoirs of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey and their circles.

Dibdin, Thomas Frognall (1776–1847) DNB. 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.

D’Israeli, Isaac (1766–1848) DNB. 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.

Dodd, James William (?1759/60–1818). An Usher at Westminster School from 1784.

Dolignon, Elizabeth (d. 1802). 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.

Douce, Francis (1757–1834) DNB. 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.

Douglas, Howard, 3rd Baronet (1776–1861) DNB. Artillery officer and writer on all aspects of gunnery. He served in Spain 1808–1809 and 1812 and provided Southey with information for his History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832). In return, Southey tried to arrange for Douglas’s Observations on the Motives, Errors and Tendency of M. Carnot’s System of Defence (1819) to be reviewed in the Quarterly Review. Douglas was later a General and Governor of New Brunswick 1823–1831, and High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands 1835–1840.

Doyle, Sir Charles William (1770–1842). Irish Army officer, from a military family based in Kilkenny. He joined the 14th Foot as an ensign in 1783 and from 1793 onwards served with distinction in the Netherlands, the West Indies and Egypt. In 1808–1811 Doyle helped to arm and train Spanish troops in the Peninsular War. His work was judged a great success, especially in forming a group of light infantry known as ‘Doyle’s Triadores’ and he was made a Lieutenant-General in the Spanish Army. In 1811–1814 he served as Director and Inspector-General of Military Instruction to British troops in Spain. Doyle was knighted in 1813 and eventually reached the rank of Lieutenant-General in the British Army in 1837, though he never saw active service again after his time in Spain. He sent Southey some of his papers in 1823 to aid in the writing of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).

D’Oyley, Thomas (1772–1855). 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.

D’Oyly, George (1778–1846) DNB. Domestic Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury 1813–1815. He was co–editor of an annotated Bible (1814) for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge meeting in Bartlett’s Buildings, an Anglican missionary society founded in 1701, and a frequent contributor to the Quarterly Review. He corresponded with Southey in the 1820s.

Druitt, Mrs (née Lovell; dates unknown). A sister of Southey’s brother-in-law, Robert Lovell; probably either Deborah (1773–1859), Sarah (dates unknown), Lydia (1777–1830) or Rachael Lovell (dates unknown). She had moved to Dublin by 1816 and married Joseph Druitt (1767–1833), an official at the Friends School, Lisburn 1821–1833, probably in 1819. Southey corresponded with her intermittently.

Duppa, Richard (c. 1768–1831) DNB. Writer (mainly on botany, art, literature and politics) and draughtsman. Son of William and Susannah Duppa. Educated (late in life) at Trinity College, Oxford (matric. 1807); entered Middle Temple 1810) graduated LLB Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1814. His publications included: A Brief Account of the Subversion of the Papal Government in 1798 (1799); Heads from the Fresco Pictures of Raffaele in the Vatican (1802), reviewed by Southey in the Annual Review (1805); A Selection of Twelve Heads from the Last Judgment of Michael Angelo (1801); Memoirs of a Literary and Political Character (1803); and The Life and Literary Works of Michael Angelo Buonarotti, with His Poetry and Letters (1806). The latter contained translations by Southey and William Wordsworth. Southey and Duppa were introduced by Edmund Seward in Oxford in 1793. Duppa was related to Seward and, according to family lore, distantly related to Southey. Part of Southey’s circle, he was at one time engaged to Mary Page, the cousin of Grosvenor Charles and Horace Walpole Bedford. In the 1790s, Southey sought Duppa’s advice about projected illustrated editions of his poems. Later, Duppa provided the material on Westminster Abbey and on art in Southey’s Letters from England (1807).

Dusautoy, James (c. 1797–1815). Son of a retired officer from Totnes, Devon. He cherished ambitions for a poetic career. As a schoolboy in 1811 he canvassed Walter Scott’s advice and was politely encouraged to improve his writing by gaining more knowledge. In 1813 Dusautoy sent some of his verses to Southey. The latter replied and a correspondence about Dusautoy’s career ensued. He took Southey’s advice and was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1813. In 1814 he entered an ode, in Spenserian stanzas, for a university prize in English poetry. He did not win, but did very well in examinations and seemed to have a promising future. However, in 1815 he fell victim to an epidemic sweeping Cambridge. Southey blamed himself, noting that without his encouragement Dusautoy would never have been at the university and would therefore have not contracted the fatal disease. As a tribute, he proposed publishing a selection of Dusautoy’s writing. However, when he obtained the manuscripts, Southey felt they would not suit public taste: ‘To me … the most obvious faults … are the most unequivocal proofs of genius in the author, as being efforts of a mind conscious of a strength which it had not yet learnt to use … But common readers read only to be amused, and to them these pieces would appear crude and extravagant, because they would only see what is, without any reference to what might have been’. The edition of Dusautoy was therefore abandoned.

Dyer, George (1755–1841) DNB. 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).

Edmondson, John (d. 1823). A surgeon and apothecary in Keswick, who treated the Southey family.

Edridge, Henry (1768–1821) DNB. Watercolourist who lived in Cavendish Square, London. Edridge sketched Southey in 1804.

Edwards, Charles (1797–1868). A Cambridge solicitor who later emigrated to New York. He was the author of Hofer, and Other Poems (1820), which quoted from Southey’s Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal (1797) (p. 74). In December 1819, Edwards approached Southey and asked for a favour (possibly a contribution to Hofer), which Southey declined. Edwards's book was published by Longmans, who also published Southey’s work, and the subject might have appealed to Southey, who was an admirer of the Tyrolese patriot, Andreas Hofer (1767–1810).

Egerton, Thomas (fl. 1750–1830) and John (d.1795). 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).

Elliott, Ebenezer (1781–1849) DNB. The ‘Corn-Law Rhymer’. Son of an ironmaster, Elliott became an amateur botanist and a self-taught poet after his brother introduced him to Thomson’s Seasons. From 1808, when Elliott first requested Southey’s advice, Southey encouraged his poetic career: Elliott later declared that Southey had taught him the art of poetry. He published Night, or, the Legend of Wharncliffe in 1818 and Tales of the Night in 1820. From the 1820s, Elliott was a manufacturer in Sheffield, where, disgusted by what he saw as the adverse effects of the Corn Laws on business and on the poor, he campaigned for their repeal, especially through his Corn Law Rhymes (1831). Southey reviewed these critically in 1833, writing to Lord Mahon, ‘I never suspected him of giving his mind to any other object than poetry till Wordsworth put the Corn-Law Rhymes into my hands . . . In such times as these, whatever latent evil there is in a nation is brought out’.

Ellis, George (1753–1815) DNB; Hist P. Man of letters. Ellis entered parliament in 1796 as junior member for Seaford; he never spoke in the house, and did not stand for re-election. He collaborated with George Canning and William Gifford on the journal the Anti-Jacobin; and he was a friend, from 1801, of Walter Scott. Ellis’s Specimens of the Early English Poets (1790, 2nd edn. 1801, 3rd edn. 1803) provided the model for Southey’s Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807).

Elmsley, Peter (1774–1825) DNB. Classical scholar. Son of Alexander Elmsley. He was named after his uncle, the famous London bookseller from whom he inherited a considerable fortune. Educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford (matric. 1791, BA 1794, MA 1797, BD and DD 1823), he was described as ‘the fattest undergraduate of his day’ (DNB. Ordained and presented to the living of Little Horkesley, Essex, on his uncle’s death in 1802 he relinquished his duties and income to a curate, though he continued to hold the living until 1816. He made a brief move to Edinburgh, where he met the founders of the Edinburgh Review, to which he became a contributor. He returned to London and in 1807 moved to Kent, where he lived with his mother until 1816. During this time he produced editions of Aristophanes, Sophocles and Euripides and a number of learned papers on classical subjects, published in the Quarterly Review and other periodicals. He travelled at length in Europe c. 1816–1818 and settled in Oxford in 1818. In 1823 (having been unsuccessfully proposed for the Regius Chair of Divinity at Oxford and having turned down the See of Calcutta) he was elected Camden Professor of Ancient History and Principal of St Alban Hall, Oxford, offices he held until his death in 1825. Southey and Elmsley met at Westminster School and remained lifelong friends, though relatively little of what seems to have been an extensive correspondence survives. Elmsley was also a great friend of Charles Watkin Williams Wynn and the latter erected a memorial tablet to him in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.

Erskine, Henry (1746–1817) DNB; Hist P. Lawyer and politician. Younger brother of the barrister and from 1806–7 Lord Chancellor Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine (1750–1823; DNB).

Estlin, John Prior (1747–1817) DNB. Unitarian minister, at Lewin’s Mead Chapel, Bristol, and school master. Educated at the Warrington Academy, he moved to Bristol in 1771. Married Mary Coates (1753–1783) and, after her death, Susanna Bishop (d. 1842). He was on good terms with a number of writers, including Southey (whom he had taught briefly when he took over Mr Foot’s school, Bristol), Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Anna Letitia Barbauld. His publications included The Nature and Causes of Atheism (1797).

Estlin, Susanna Bishop (d. 1842). The second wife of John Prior Estlin.

Evans, Greeton. In 1814 Southey received a letter from ‘Greeton Evans’, who claimed to be a labouring class poet from rural North Wales seeking the Poet Laureate’s advice. Southey was impressed and offered to help the young man. He was shortly afterwards forced to conclude the letter was a hoax.

Everett, Edward (1794–1865). 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.

Everett, James (1784–1872) DNB. Methodist Minister, bookseller, historian, polemicist and dissident. He was expelled from the main body of Methodists in 1849 and became a central figure in the United Methodist Free Church. He struck up a surprisingly amicable correspondence with Southey, prompted by the latter’s biographical sketch of John Wesley (1703–1791; DNB) in the Correspondent (1817).

Favell, Samuel (1775­–1812). Son of John Favell (dates unknown), a house-painter in Cambridge. Favell attended Christ’s Hospital School 1786-1795, where he encountered both Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Charles Lamb. He entered Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1795, but did not graduate and joined the 61st Regiment of Foot, becoming a Captain in 1809. He was killed at the Battle of Salamanca in 1812.

Feldborg, Andreas Andersen (1782–1838). Danish author who was resident in England 1802–1810 and 1821–1824. Southey drew on some of his works in his Life of Nelson (1813). Feldborg visited Southey in 1821 and they corresponded intermittently.

Feltham, John (c. 1770– c. 1813). 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).

Fisher, Henry (1781–1837). Printer, publisher and head of the largest periodicals warehouse in England. His firm was devoted to cheap editions of popular works, sold in monthly instalments. In 1819 he asked Southey to write a life of George III, a proposal that Southey swiftly declined.

Fletcher, Sarah (dates unknown). She ran a school for girls in Ambleside and was well known to William Wordsworth and his family. Wordsworth described her, in a letter to Henry Crabb Robinson, 3 March 1822, as having ‘very good dispositions and I believe a good temper … but she was very deaf’, The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, 2nd edn, The Later Years: Part 1, 1821–1828, ed. Alan G. Hill (Oxford, 1978), p. 111. Miss Fletcher became a great friend of Mary Barker, with whom she lived in 1818 after debts forced her to give up her school. Miss Fletcher later moved to Birmingham.

Flower, Benjamin (1755–1829) DNB. Writer and publisher of the radical newspaper the Cambridge Intelligencer. In 1799, Flower was sentenced to six months imprisonment and a fine of £100 for a libel against Richard Watson, the Bishop of Llandaff.

Fox, Charles James (1749–1806) DNB; Hist P. A hero of Southey’s in the 1790s as the great radical Whig leader and ‘Friend of the People’ who opposed the anti-reform policies of William Pitt’s (1759–1806; DNB) government. Fox was an admirer of pastoral poetry and for this reason Southey sent him a presentation copy of Madoc (Wordsworth had done likewise with Lyrical Ballads. In semi-retirement from politics from 1797–1806, Fox became Foreign Minister in the government headed by Wynn’s uncle, William Wyndham, Baron Grenville, in 1806, dying the same year having seen the bill for the abolition of the slave trade, for which he had long campaigned, pass parliament.

Fox, Elizabeth Vassall (1771–1845) DNB. The wife of Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland, and a renowned political and literary hostess. Lady Holland discussed Spain and Portugal with Southey, and welcomed him to Holland House where he used the library.

Fox, Henry Richard, 3rd Lord Holland (1773–1840) DNB. Whig politician and Hispanophile; nephew of the Whig politician Charles James Fox. Lord Holland gave Southey access to his superb library of books and manuscripts relating to Spain, Portugal and their colonies. Southey used it to research his History of Brazil (1810–1819).

Freeling, Francis,1st Baronet (1764–1836) DNB. 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).

Frere, Bartholomew (1776–1851) DNB. Diplomat. The younger brother of John Hookham Frere, he attended Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1801 embarked on a diplomatic career. Frere was Secretary of Legation in the British Embassies to Portugal 1801–1802, Spain 1802–1805, 1808–1810 and Prussia 1805–1807. He then served as Secretary to the Embassy to the Ottoman Empire 1807–1808, 1811–1821, and it was in this capacity that Southey wrote to him, introducing Wade Browne (1796–1851), the son of his friend Wade Browne.

Frere, John Hookham (1769–1846) DNB; Hist P. 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.

Fricker, Edith (1774–1837) DNB. Southey’s first wife. The third surviving child of Stephen Fricker and Martha Rowles. Southey and Edith met as children in Bristol. They married in secret on 14 November 1795 at St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. As her sister Sarah later explained, Southey ‘left ... [Edith] at the Church door’ and the following day departed for Spain and Portugal. Edith spent the early days of her marriage living with the Cottle sisters and using her maiden name, only reverting to ‘Southey’ when the secret became public in early 1796. Recent biographers of Southey have questioned the state of his marriage, particularly given his lively — even flirtatious — friendships with Mary Barker and Caroline Bowles, who became his second wife in 1839. Compared to these other women, or to her sister Sarah, Edith is a relatively shadowy figure, plagued by physical and mental illness. The deaths of four of her eight children, in particular that of her daughter Isabel in 1826, hastened her decline. She suffered a complete collapse in 1834 and was taken to The Retreat, the pioneering, Quaker-run asylum in York, where she was diagnosed as of ‘unsound mind’ and treated with ‘purgatives, remedies, [and] leeches’. She was released in 1835 ‘as admitted’ — that is, uncured and incurable. Edith spent her final years at her home, Greta Hall, where she was cared for by Southey and her daughters Bertha and Kate. Southey described her death as a release from ‘a pitiable state of existence’.

Fricker, Eliza (b. 1778). Southey’s sister-in-law. She never married and spent her final years on the Isle of Man, with her sister Martha.

Fricker family. Stephen Fricker (1738–1786) and his second wife Martha Rowles (1750–1809) and their six surviving children: Sarah, Mary, Edith, Martha (b. 1777), Eliza (b. 1778) and George (b. 1785). The failure of his business speculations (including the manufacture of sugar pans) contributed to Stephen Fricker’s early death and to a sharp decline in the fortunes of his family. The family home was sold, Mrs Fricker moved into lodgings in Bristol and opened a dame school, and her three eldest daughters became seamstresses, whose clients included Southey’s mother and aunt, Elizabeth Tyler. Southey knew the Frickers from childhood and was ‘partly educated’ with the three eldest girls. The similarity between their situation and his own (Southey’s father was also a bankrupt) was perhaps an important factor in what was to be a lifelong relationship.

Fricker, George (1785–1813). Southey’s only brother-in-law. Southey was intermittently successful in gaining him employment, at a bank in Bristol in 1800 and on one of Rickman’s statistical projects in 1804. Though Southey respected George’s good qualities, he was frustrated by his ‘uncommon dullness’, and bemused by his Methodist enthusiasm. He died at Greta Hall after a long illness.

Fricker, Martha (1777–1850). Southey’s sister-in-law. She never married and spent her final years on the Isle of Man, with her sister Eliza.

Fricker, Mary (1771–1862). Southey’s sister-in-law. The second surviving child of Stephen Fricker and Martha Rowles. In the early 1790s she worked as an actress in Bath and Bristol theatres. She married Robert Lovell in January 1794, in spite of the disapproval of his family. Their son, also called Robert, was born in 1795. After Lovell’s death in 1796, Southey tried to persuade his family to provide for his widow and child. He was only partially successful. The Lovells gave Robert Lovell Junior the occasional gift (for example, £20 in 1802) and made some contribution to the boy’s early education, but they did not provide consistent, long-term support. As a result, Mary and her son were dependent upon Southey. They lived with or near to the Southeys for the rest of the 1790s and early 1800s and in 1803 accompanied them to their new home, Greta Hall. Mary remained with the Southeys after her son’s apprenticeship to a London printer. She finally moved out when the house was given up after Southey’s death in 1843. She spent her final years living with Kate, Southey’s unmarried daughter, and died on 10 August 1862. She was buried in the Southey grave in Crosthwaite churchyard, on the outskirts of Keswick.

Fricker, Sarah (1770–1845). Southey’s sister-in-law. The eldest surviving child of Stephen Fricker and Martha Rowles. Sarah and Southey were childhood friends, and it was through her that Southey met Robert Lovell in late 1793. Southey may well have been romantically interested in Sarah, before he became engaged to her sister, Edith Fricker, in 1794. Sarah met Samuel Taylor Coleridge through Southey and the two married on 4 October 1795. They had three surviving children – Hartley, Derwent and Sara. After frequent moves in the 1790s the Coleridges settled at Greta Hall in Keswick in 1800 in order to be near Wordsworth. However, their marriage was already troubled and Coleridge left for Malta in 1804, returning only occasionally and not at all after 1812. This left Sarah Coleridge dependent on Southey’s help to support her, her three children and her widowed sister, Mary Lovell. Sarah helped to run the household at Greta Hall and contributed to the education of the Southey and Coleridge children, and the situation seems to have worked harmoniously. Her relationship with Southey, who provided her with advice and support during her later marital difficulties, was affectionate, and at times jokey and rumbustious. In 1829 Sarah Coleridge left Greta Hall to live firstly with her son, Derwent, and then with her daughter, Sara.

Garnett, Richard (1789–1850). Philologist, clergyman, author and librarian, born at Otley, Yorkshire, the son of a paper manufacturer. His early extraordinary facility with languages convinced him he had no wish to enter his father’s business and he became a schoolmaster in 1811, before being ordained in 1813. Garnett was curate of Blackburn and assistant-master of the grammar school 1818–1826, then held a number of other preferments until he became assistant keeper of printed books at the British Museum in 1838. He first became widely known through his attacks on the Catholic Church, especially its belief in miracles, in 1828. In the mid-1830s he played a key role in introducing German philological research to Britain. Garnett first wrote to Southey in 1822, and on a variety of subjects from ghosts to Spanish ballads, and the two men corresponded again in 1826–1827 on the Catholic Church, Garnett providing Southey with information for his Vindicæ Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ. Letters to Charles Butler, Esq. comprising Essays on the Romish Religion and Vindicating The Book of the Church (1826). Southey also provided Garnett with an introduction to Sharon Turner.

George IV (1762–1830) DNB. Prince Regent 1811–1820) King of the United Kingdom 1820–1830. Southey met him at a Court levee on 11 November 1813 following his installation as Poet Laureate and gave him what little praise he felt he could in one of his Congratulatory Odes (1814). George IV made only fleeting appearances in the rest of Southey’s Laureate verses and Southey did not commemorate either his Coronation or his death.

Gibson, John (c. 1794–1860). Tea dealer, based in the port of Whitehaven, Cumbria, where he was deputy postmaster 1837–1860. He was a keen collector of autographs, books and prints and corresponded with Southey in the 1820s.

Gifford, William (1756–1826) DNB. Long known to Southey as a Tory critic and editor of the Anti-Jacobin, Gifford became the first editor in 1809 of a new conservative journal begun on Southey’s advice – the Quarterly Review. Gifford then approached Southey through their mutual friend Grosvenor Charles Bedford to be a contributor. Gifford continued as editor until 1824, frequently the target of Southey’s ire over the cuts and interpolations he made to Southey’s contributions. In earlier life a shoemaker, Gifford was the author of two powerful verse satires, The Baviad (1791) and The Mӕviad (1795).

Gilbert, William (1763–1824) DNB. Poet and astrologer. Born in Antigua, son of Nathaniel Gilbert, speaker of the Antiguan House of Assembly. In 1788 he came to England to work as a lawyer, but suffered a mental collapse and was placed in an asylum run by Richard Henderson (1736/7–1792) at Hanham near Bristol. (In an earlier career as a schoolmaster, Henderson had numbered Joseph Cottle among his pupils.) Gilbert was released after a year and went to London, where he worked as an astrologer and maker of magic talismans. In 1795 he went to Bristol, where he became friends with Southey and Coleridge. In 1796 he published The Hurricane: a Theosophical and Western Eclogue. Gilbert left Bristol in 1798, hoping to promote his idea for a new trading entrepot in West Africa. His friends feared he would attempt to travel there and Southey made enquiries after Gilbert in Liverpool, to no effect. It seems that Gilbert moved to the United States relatively early after leaving Bristol and lived there for the rest of his life, dying in Augusta, Georgia. Southey, however, believed Gilbert to be long-dead when he described Gilbert’s ‘madness’ in The Life of Wesley; and the Rise and Progress of Methodism (1820), a reference that produced considerable public indignation from Gilbert.

Gillies, Robert Pearse (1788–1858). Born in Forfarshire, the son of a small landowner. After losing most of his fortune, he settled in Edinburgh in 1815 and pursued a literary career. Gillies became an expert on German literature, publishing many translations in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, and was a close friend of Walter Scott. At Scott’s suggestion, he persuaded Messrs Truettel and Wurtz to set up the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1827, with Gillies as editor; Southey contributed to the first issue. Gillies remained as editor of the Foreign Quarterly Review until 1830, but his financial position was dire and he retreated to Boulogne in 1840–1847 and was arrested for debt on his return. His Memoirs of a Literary Veteran (1851) is a valuable record of literary life.

Godwin, William (1756–1836) DNB. Philosopher, journalist and novelist. Godwin was born in Wisbech and grew up in a middle class and fiercely Nonconformist household. He was educated at Hoxton Academy and was a Congregationalist Minister in Suffolk 1778–1782, before resigning his post and moving to London to try and make a living from literary work. His views became increasingly radical, and he embraced atheism and philosophical anarchism. His Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) and his novel Caleb Williams (1794) made him well-known as a radical thinker and an important figure in London intellectual and literary life. In 1797 he married Mary Wollstonecraft, who died later that year; their only child was Mary Godwin, author of Frankenstein (1818). Godwin’s Memoirs (1798) of Mary Wollstonecraft proved intensely controversial as they revealed her unconventional life. Southey was an early enthusiast for An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, which he read shortly after its publication. He met Godwin in London in 1797 and disliked him, though he remained a life-long admirer of Mary Wollstonecraft. Godwin married his neighbour, Mary Jane Clairmont, in 1801 and set up the Juvenile Library in 1805, which proved to be a successful retailer and publisher of children’s literature. Godwin continued to publish plays, novels, history and philosophy, but without the sensational impact of his works of the 1790s. In 1833 his radical reputation had faded sufficiently for him to be given a Government sinecure.

Gonne, Mary (1768-1825). Daughter of Robert and Mary Harding, of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire and wife of William Gonne, whom she married in 1790. She was the godmother of Edith May Southey and the mother of Henry Herbert Southey’s second wife, Louisa Gonne. Southey greatly admired her.

Gonne, William (d. 1815). Wealthy merchant, based in Portugal. He first met Southey in 1800, when he was the packet agent at Lisbon. In 1815 his daughter Louisa married Henry Herbert Southey.

Gooch, Robert (1784–1830) DNB. Obstetric physician from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. He became a close friend of Henry Herbert Southey when they both studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and also knew William Taylor. Gooch graduated MD in 1807 and became, as Henry also did, a contributor to the journal the London Medical Record. In 1811–1812 Gooch set up a successful medical practice in London, and published important works on puerperal fever. Gooch met Southey on a tour of the Lakes in 1811 and the two began a lifelong correspondence. Southey also introduced Gooch to the Quarterly Review, where he became an occasional contributor.

Gooch, Sarah, née Travers (b. 1788). Second wife of Robert Gooch, whom she married in January 1814. She was the sister of the surgeon Benjamin Travers (1783–1858).

Gooden, James (1773–1851). 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].

Goodenough, Edmund (1785–1845) DNB. Headmaster of Westminster School 1819–1828. He was a clergyman and later Dean of Wells 1831–1845. Southey wrote to him in his capacity as Headmaster of Westminster School.

Grahame, James (1765–1811) DNB. Scottish poet and, from 1809, a clergyman of the Church of Scotland. He published The Sabbath (1804) (reviewed by Southey in the Annual Review (1806)), British Georgics (1808) (reviewed by Southey in the Quarterly Review (1810)), and The Siege of Copenhagen; a Poem (1808). In 1811 Southey wrote of him: ‘His understanding was not equal to his genius, & it required the sunshine of a brighter fortune than ever fell to his lot to counteract a natural melancholy, the constitutional mental disease of men whose feelings are stronger than their intellect … his Sabbath will always remain, – & from all his other pieces … a few rare passages may be culled which the best of us might have been proud to have written.’

Grant, Anne (1755–1838) DNB. Scottish poet and author, best known for Memoirs of an American Lady (1809) – a work that was greatly admired by Southey. Born Ann Macvicar, she grew up mainly in New York and Vermont, before her family moved back to Scotland in 1768. In 1778 she married a clergyman, James Grant, and after his death in 1801 supported herself from her writings and by taking in pupils. She was a prominent figure in Edinburgh literary life and Southey met her when he visited the city on 17–18 August 1819. They later corresponded briefly on literary matters.

Greenough, George Bellas (1778–1855) DNB; Hist P. 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).

Grenville, Thomas (1755–1846) DNB; Hist P. Charles Watkin Williams Wynn’s uncle. First Lord of the Admiralty, 1806–1807.

Grenville, William Wyndham, 1st Baron Grenville (1759–1834) DNB; Hist P. Foreign Secretary 1791–1801, Prime Minister 1806–1807. Grenville was the uncle of Southey’s friend and patron Charles Watkin Williams Wynn.

Gurney, Joseph John (1788–1847). Member of the Gurney family of Quakers and bankers, based in Norwich. He became a partner in the family bank in 1805 and soon came to play a leading role in its operations. However, his sister was the prison reformer, Elizabeth Fry (1780–1845 DNB and he spent much of his life campaigning to help prisoners, abolish capital punishment and end the slave trade. Gurney was also a key spokesman for evangelicalism within Quakerism.

Gutch, John Matthew (1776–1861) DNB. Educated at Christ’s Hospital with Coleridge and Lamb and later the owner and printer of Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, 1803–1844. He also printed Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria (1817). Gutch was an enthusiastic collector of antiquarian books, and major sales from his library occurred in 1810, 1812, 1817 and 1858.

Guthrie, John (d. 1824). Bookseller, originally from Aberdeenshire he moved to Edinburgh where he was a founder of the firm Tait & Guthrie. In autumn 1803 Henry Herbert Southey lodged with him at 2 Nicolson St.

Halbertsma, Justus Hiddes (1789–1869). Minister in the Mennonite Church in the Netherlands and leading figure in the creation of a literary tradition in West Frisian. He was born in Grou in Friesland, the son of a baker, and trained at the Mennonite seminary in Amsterdam 1807–1813, before becoming a Minister in Bolsward 1814–1821 and Deventer 1822–1856. Halberstma and his two brothers issued the first collection of folk tales in Western Frisian, De Lapekoer fan Gabe Skroar, in 1822, and the collection was reissued and expanded throughout his lifetime. He also wrote an (unfinished) dictionary of Western Frisian, biographies and a history of the Mennonite Church. Southey met Halbertsma in the Netherlands in 1825 at the home of Willem Bilderdijk, and Halbertsma later sent him a translation into West Frisian of The Merchant of Venice.

Hall, Samuel Carter (1800–1889). Journal editor and writer. He was born at Geneva barracks, County Waterford, where his father, Robert Hall (1753–1836), was an officer in the Devon and Cornwall Fencibles. In c. 1802 the family moved to Topsham in Devon but later returned to Ireland. Hall developed an early interest in literature and the arts. His first poem was occasioned by the death of his eldest brother, Revis, at the battle of Albuera in 1811. In 1822 Hall moved to London. He was briefly employed as secretary to the exiled Italian poet Ugo Foscolo (1778–1827) and later worked for a period on Sir Robert Wilson’s (1777–1849; DNB) attempt to raise an Anglo-Spanish legion against France. Hall married Anna Marie, née Fielding (1800–1881; DNB) in 1824. The couple both embarked on careers as literary professionals and moved in literary and artistic circles. In 1827 Hall’s editorship of The Amulet, or Christian and Literary Remembrancer brought him into an occasional correspondence with Southey, to whom he sent a copy. Southey, in turn, contributed to the annual; his ‘Lines Written Upon the Death of Princess Charlotte’ was published in the 1829 volume.

Hamond, Elton (1786–1820). Businessman, writer and suicide. The son of a wealthy London tea merchant, he was a cousin of Stamford Raffles (1781–1826; DNB), colonial administrator and founder of Singapore. One of Hamond’s sisters lived for a time in the household of Anna Laetitia Barbauld. Hamond’s business failed in 1813. He committed suicide by shooting himself through the head on 1 January 1820. He had, he explained in a note left for the coroner, been planning his death for seven years. Hamond moved in the same circles as Henry Herbert Southey and harboured ambitions to be a writer. In early 1819 he asked Robert Southey, whom he had met socially, to act as his literary executor. The Poet Laureate did not commit himself to doing so, but wrote twice to Hamond. After he received no reply to the second letter, he assumed he had caused offence and that the correspondence was at an end. The next he heard was in January 1820, when Henry Crabb Robinson informed him that Hamond had committed suicide and had named Southey as his literary executor. The latter took the task seriously and proposed an edition of Hamond’s writings. After reading through his surviving manuscripts Southey changed his mind, determining that they had no literary worth and should remain unpublished. Henry Crabb Robinson noted that Hamond’s problems stemmed from self-obsession and a sense of failure: ‘while he had a conviction that he was to have been, and ought to have been, the greatest of men, he was conscious that in fact he was not.’

Hare, Francis George (1786–1842). Brother of Julius Hare and Augustus William Hare (1792–1834; DNB), clergyman, tutor at New College, Oxford, and historian. The brothers were the sons of Francis Hare-Naylor (1753–1815; DNB), historian, novelist and playwright. Francis George Hare lived mostly on the Continent and was a close friend of Walter Savage Landor. He visited Southey at Keswick in 1827) Southey commented ‘Never did I see a man possessed of such exuberant spirits’.

Hare, Julius Charles (1795–1855). Writer and Church of England clergyman. He was born in Valdagno, Italy, the son of the historian, novelist and playwright, Francis Hare-Naylor (1753–1815; DNB) and his wife Georgiana (c. 1755–1806). His maternal aunt, Anna Maria (1748–1829; DNB), was the widow of the orientalist Sir William Jones (1746–1794; DNB). The family returned to England in 1799. What became a lifelong interest in German literature and scholarship began with Hare’s visit to Weimar in 1804. He matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1812, graduated B.A. in 1816 and was elected to a Fellowship in 1818. A bibliophile, he amassed a library of some 12,000 volumes that was particularly rich in modern German writers. He obtained a Lectureship at Trinity in 1822 and his pupils included Frederick Denison Maurice (1805–1872; DNB) and John Sterling (1806–1844; DNB). He was ordained in 1826, took up a family living at Herstmonceux, Sussex, in 1832, and became Archdeacon of Lewes in 1840. His clerical career was shaped by his dislike of partisanship and his vision of an Anglican Church that could encompass a broad spectrum of belief. In 1844 he married Jane Esther Maurice (1814–1864), sister of his former pupil and close friend. Hare’s literary career began with the publication of Sintram and His Companions (1820), a translation of the gothic tale by Frederic de la Motte, Baron Fouqué (1777–1743). Hare contributed criticism and translations to a number of periodicals, including Ollier’s Literary Miscellany and The Athenaeum, and did much to promote availability and knowledge of German higher criticism in Britain. He also acted as an editor and agent for Walter Savage Landor, overseeing the publication of the latter’s Imaginary Conversations (1824–1829). This brought him into contact with Southey, who helped to censor the more libellous comments in Landor’s book in order to ensure its publication. Southey was also on good terms with Hare’s older brother, the Church of England clergyman, Augustus Hare (1792–1834; DNB).

Harris, John (1756–1846). Publisher, who mainly specialised in juvenile books. In 1813, in collaboration with C. J. Barrington, he ventured into new territory and suggested that Southey should take up the continuations 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.

Hartwell (or Hartnell), Aaron (fl. 1820s–1850s). In early 1824 Southey was elected as an Honorary Member of the Bristol Literary and Philosophical Society and Hartwell corresponded with him on this matter, as he was the organisation’s Secretary. Local directories describe Hartwell as a ‘Professor of Mathematics’ and he contributed papers on astronomy to the Bristol Literary and Philosophical Society.

Haslewood, Joseph (1769–1833) DNB. 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).

Hatherton, Lord: Edward John Littleton (formerly Walhouse; 1791–1863) DNB; Hist P. Politician. The son of Moreton Walhouse, he changed his name to Littleton in 1812 in order to comply with the terms of the will of his great uncle Sir Edward Littleton, the bulk of whose estates he inherited. He married Hyacinthe Mary (1789?–1849), the illegitimate daughter of Richard, 1st Marquess Wellesley. He was elected MP for Staffordshire in 1812, and supported Canning and Catholic emancipation. In 1835 he was created Baron Hatherton of Hatherton.

Haydon, Benjamin Robert (1786–1846) DNB. 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).

Hays, Mary (1759–1843) DNB. 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.

Hazlitt, William (1778–1830) DNB. Writer and painter. He first met Southey in 1803, whilst in the Lakes on a commission from Sir George Beaumont to paint Coleridge, Hartley Coleridge and Wordsworth. Their relationship was, though, to be conducted largely in the public sphere, via the medium of newspapers and reviews. The catalyst for so public a relationship was undoubtedly Southey’s appointment as Poet Laureate in September 1813. Over the next decade or so Hazlitt produced a series of reviews and essays devoted to Southey and his works. His observations on the new Poet Laureate appeared in the Morning Chronicle on 18 and 20 September 1813, followed by his appraisal of the Laureate’s first ‘official’ publication (the ode Carmen Triumphale in the pages of the same newspaper on 8 January 1814. His critique was continued in a review of The Lay of the Laureate, gained new ferocity in pages of the Examiner during the 1817 controversy over the illicit publication of Southey’s Wat Tyler, continued in the Lectures on the English Poets (1818–19) and culminated in the pen-portrait of Southey in The Spirit of the Age (1825).

Heathcote, William, 5th Baronet (1801–1881) DNB; Hist P. Landowner and politician. He was the only son of William Heathcote (1772–1802), Rector of Worting, and Elizabeth (1773–1855), a daughter of Lovelace Bigg-Wither (1741–1813) – he was thus a nephew of Herbert Hill’s wife. Heathcote was educated at Winchester College and then at Oriel College, Oxford, where he was taught by John Keble (1792–1866; DNB) and struck up a friendship with John Taylor Coleridge. He inherited a baronetcy and an estate (Hursley Park, Hampshire) from an uncle in 1825, and was MP for Hampshire 1826–1831, Hampshire North 1837–1849, and Oxford University 1854–1868. A staunch Tory and Tractarian, he refused to have Dissenters as tenants. He assisted Southey with arrangements for his 1820 visit to the University of Oxford and they corresponded intermittently afterwards.

Heber, Reginald (1783–1826) DNB. Younger half-brother of Richard Heber, he was ordained in 1807 and gained some reputation as an Anglican theologian and hymn-writer. He was deeply interested in missionary work, was well-read on West and South Asia and was an occasional contributor to the Quarterly Review. In 1823 his friend Wynn obtained for him the post of Bishop of Calcutta and he died in India after a brief, but highly successful, term of office. Southey wrote a poem in memory of Heber for the Life of Reginald Heber (1830).

Heber, Richard (1774–1833) DNB; Hist P. Book-collector. Son of Reginald Heber, clergyman and landowner. Educated at Brasenose College, Oxford (BA 1796, MA, 1797). Heber edited some minor classical writers, but his main interest was his book collection, which finally totalled over 100,000 volumes housed in eight different locations. Though he concentrated on early English poetry and drama his library included classical works and a wide selection of European and Latin American literature. Heber was exceptionally generous in lending his books, and let Southey use his copy of Amadis of Gaul. Heber was MP for Oxford University 1821–1825, but resigned and spent several years on the continent after rumours of a homosexual relationship began to circulate. However, he was never prosecuted and eventually returned to England.

Heraud, Ann Elizabeth (d. 1867). Daughter of Henry Baddams (1776–1842); she married John Abraham Heraud on 15 May 1823 and the couple had six children, one of whom, Edith Heraud (d. 1899), an actress, wrote a Memoir of her father (1898).

Heraud, John Abraham (1799–1887) DNB. 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.

Herries, John Charles (1778–1855) DNB; Hist P. Started his life in office in 1798 as a junior, but well-connected, civil servant at the Treasury. He played an important part in the British war effort as Commissary-in-Chief 1811–1816, and later moved into politics as Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1823–1827, and Chancellor of the Exchequer 1827–1828. Southey knew him through Grosvenor Bedford and Herries proved helpful with franking Southey’s correspondence.

Hertford, Lord; Francis Ingram-Seymour-Conway, 2nd Marquess of Hertford (1743–1822) DNB. Lord Chamberlain 1812–1821, and as such, a key figure in the appointment of Southey as Poet Laureate in 1813.

Hill, Alfred (b. 1815). Fourth son of Herbert and Catherine Hill. He became a lawyer.

Hill, Catherine (1775–1848). Daughter of Lovelace Bigg-Wither (1741–1813), a Hampshire landowner. She and her sisters were friends of Jane Austen (1775–1817; DNB). In 1808 she married Herbert Hill and the couple had six children.

Hill, Edward (1809–1900). Eldest son of Herbert and Catherine Hill. Educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. Southey provided a stream of advice on Edward’s education, including the process of being elected a King’s Scholar at Westminster – an honour Edward achieved in 1823 – and whether he should proceed to Oxford or Cambridge. Edward was an excellent scholar and graduated with a First in 1830, becoming a Tutor at Christ Church. Southey liked and respected Edward and invited him to spend a number of holidays in Keswick, beginning in 1824. Edward was ordained in 1836 and held a series of curacies before becoming Rector of Sheering, Essex, 1849–1899 – the living was in the gift of Christ Church, Oxford.

Hill, Errol (1812–1844). Third son of Herbert and Catherine Hill; a clergyman and Fellow of New College, Oxford. He was reputed to have proposed marriage to Southey’s daughter Katherine (Kate), but was turned down.

Hill, Georgiana (1816–1873). The only daughter of Herbert Hill and his wife Catherine.

Hill, Herbert (c. 1749–1828). Southey’s maternal uncle. Hill was the product of a second marriage, and after his father’s death was left short of money (even having to ‘pay his own school bills when it was in his power’) and on extremely bad terms with his older half-brother. Hill was educated at Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1772, MA 1774). From 1782–1807, he was chaplain to the British factory at Lisbon. Hill took a paternal interest in his nephews, and helped finance Southey’s education. Hill’s concern about Southey’s refusal to take the path mapped out for him (a path leading to ordination), his relationship with Edith Fricker, and his politics, led him to visit England in 1795. He returned to Portugal with Southey in tow. Oblivious to the fact that his nephew had married Edith the day before their departure, Hill used every opportunity to introduce Southey to more suitable women. Nevertheless, the time Southey spent with his uncle in 1795–1796 greatly strengthened their relationship, which remained close until Hill’s death in 1828. Hill encouraged his nephew’s interests in Spanish and Portuguese history and literature – the History of Brazil and the unfinished History of Portugal were projects prompted by Hill, who supplied books and manuscripts for them. When in 1806, the expected French invasion of Portugal forced Hill to contemplate returning to England, Southey was detailed to go to Hill’s parish of Staunton-on-Wye, Herefordshire and investigate the mismanagement of tithe income. Hill returned to this living in November 1807 and was the incumbent there until 1810, when the Duke of Bedford presented him to a parish in Streatham, near London. In 1808 Hill had married a woman twenty-five years his junior, Catherine Bigg-Wither, a friend of Jane Austen (1775–1817; DNB). The marriage produced six surviving children, all of whom were on good terms with Southey and his family. Hill’s son and namesake, Herbert Hill Junior, married Southey’s daughter Bertha in 1839. Southey dedicated his Colloquies (1829) to his uncle.

Hill, Herbert, Junior, (1810–1892). Second son of Herbert and Catherine Hill. Educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, where he became a Fellow in 1832 and Sub-Librarian of the Bodleian Library in 1837–1838. He taught at Rugby School 1836–1839. In 1838 he was ordained and moved to the Lake District, where he was Curate at Rydal and also took on individual pupils. He married his cousin, Southey’s daughter Bertha, in 1839 and later moved to the Midlands, where he was Headmaster of King’s School, Warwick, 1843–1876. In the bitter family dispute that marred Southey’s later years, Hill and his wife opposed Caroline Bowles. After Southey’s death, Herbert Hill edited Southey’s unfinished poem, ‘Oliver Newman’, for publication in 1845.

Hill, Margaret (known as ‘Peggy’ and, occasionally, ‘Margery’) (d. 1801). Southey’s cousin, probably the daughter of his mother’s brother Joseph Hill.

Hill, Robert Southey (1817–1872). The youngest child of Herbert Hill and his wife Catherine; he was named after his first cousin Robert Southey. In later life he became a doctor and botanist.

Hill, Thomas (1760–1840) DNB. 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’.

Hodson, Margaret (née Holford; c. 1778–1852). Poet and translator. Born in Chester, she was the eldest daughter of Allen Holford (c. 1755–1788) and his wife Margaret (c. 1761–1834), a poet, playwright and Minerva Press novelist. Margaret Hodson married, as his fourth wife, the Anglican clergyman, Septimus Hodson in 1826. She wrote prolifically as a child and published her first work, the anonymous metrical romance Wallace, or, The Fight of Falkirk, in 1809. It was followed by Poems (1811), Margaret of Anjou (1816), The Past (1819), Warbeck of Wolfstein (1820) and a set of translations, Italian Stories (1823). Southey and Hodson first met in 1827, when he accepted her invitation to stay with her during his visit to Harrogate of that year; they soon became regular correspondents. Southey had first heard of Hodson, though, when his friend, Reginald Heber, showed him some of her poetry during their visit to the home of Charles Watkin Williams Wynn in 1820. Her final work, The Lives of Nunez de Balboa and Francisco Pizarro (1832), a translation from Spanish, was dedicated to Southey.

Hodson, Septimus (1768–1833). Born in Huntingdon, the son of Robert Hodson (d. 1803), Rector of Huntingdon. Educated at Caius College, Cambridge 1779–1784, he was ordained in 1787 and was perpetual curate of Little Raveley 1787–1833 and Rector of Thrapston 1789–1828) he was appointed chaplain-in-ordinary to George IV in 1788 and chaplain of the Orphan Asylum in Lambeth in 1789. He was dismissed from the latter two posts in 1797 when it became known that he had assaulted a thirteen-year-old child at the Asylum. He married Margaret Hodson as his fourth wife in 1826. Hodson was also the author of a number of Sermons, though their contents were not always original – he was charged with plagiarism by the Monthly Review in 1789.

Hogg, Edward (1783–1848). Doctor at Hendon and travel writer. With Paul Moon James he planned the idea of an edition of the works of the Bristol poet, William Isaac Roberts, which appeared in 1811. Southey was sympathetic to the project and agreed to promote the book amongst his friends and colleagues.

Hogg, James (1770–1835) DNB. A shepherd by upbringing, Hogg taught himself to read and write and became an admirer of the verse of Burns. Scott employed him to help compile his collection of ballads, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Hogg published a collection of poems, The Mountain Bard, in 1807, and another, The Forest Minstrel, in 1810. A fringe member of the Edinburgh literary set, Hogg communicated news of forthcoming critical reviews to Southey, and was himself featured, mockingly, in Blackwoods Magazine.

Holland, Lord. See Fox, Henry Richard (1773–1840)

Holland, Lady. See Fox, Elizabeth Vassal (1771–1845)

Holroyd, John Baker, 1st Earl of Sheffield (1735–1821) DNB; Hist P. Politician, close friend and executor of Edward Gibbon (1737–1794; DNB). He was an MP for Coventry, 1780–1784, and Bristol, 1790–1802. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Sheffield in 1802, and obtained an earldom in 1816. Southey corresponded with him in 1817–1818, when Sheffield offered Southey sight of the papers of his son-in-law, General Sir Henry Clinton (1771–1829; DNB), to help with his History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).

Holworthy, Samuel (c. 1785–1838). 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.

Hone, William (1780–1842) DNB. Radical satirist, journalist and bookseller. He was tried on three successive days, 18–20 December 1817, for blasphemous and seditious libel, but was acquitted after conducting his own defence, speaking for about seven hours on all three days. His The Political House that Jack Built (1819) was one of the most famous and bestselling satires of its day. In this phase of his career Southey regarded Hone with contempt and was anxious to see him jailed or transported. Hone later devoted himself to miscellaneous literature, and his political ideas modified as he became an increasingly devout Christian and an occasional correspondent of Southey’s.

Hood, Alexander (1758–98). Naval officer, Captain of the Mars, in which Tom Southey served. Killed 21 April 1798 when the Mars captured the French vessel L’Hercule. Hood and two of his brothers were later the subject of a memorial inscription by Southey.

Hood, Alexander, Viscount Bridport (1726–1814) DNB. A cousin of the Captain of the Mars, Vice Admiral of England and Commander of the Channel Fleet 1795–1800.

Hook, James (c. 1772–1828) DNB. Dean of Worcester and brother of the writer and hoaxer Theodore Hook (1788–1841; DNB). Educated at Westminster School and St Mary Hall, Oxford (his admission to Christ Church was blocked in 1792 because of his involvement in ‘acts of insubordination’ whilst at school). Hook was one of the editors of the schoolboy magazine The Trifler, and a keen musician and artist. He was a friend of Southey’s during his time at Westminster, but their friendship did not last beyond schooldays.

Horseman, John (1776–1844). 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.

How, Thomas (c. 1758–1819). Originally from Devon, he graduated BA 1779 and MA 1785 from Balliol College, Oxford. How was Southey’s tutor at Balliol in 1793–1794. He was later Rector of Huntspill, Somerset 1804-1819.

Howley, William (1766–1848) DNB. Bishop of London 1813–1828) Archbishop of Canterbury 1828–1848. He visited Southey in 1819 and they corresponded about Southey’s efforts to find a chaplain for the expatriate community in Pernambuco.

Hucks, Joseph (1772–1800). Writer. Educated at Cambridge, Hucks accompanied Samuel Taylor Coleridge on his 1794 tour, publishing an account — A Pedestrian Tour Through North Wales, in a Series of Letters — the following year. Southey — and Coleridge — renewed their acquaintance with him during their visit to Exeter in 1799 and Hucks contributed three poems to Southey’s Annual Anthology (1800). He died of consumption in 1800. In an unpublished preliminary notice to his Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807) Southey recalled the ‘many pleasant & rememberable hours’ he and Hucks had spent together.

Hughes, Mary Anne (1770?–1853). The daughter of the Anglican clergyman George Watts (d. 1810), she married another cleric, Thomas Hughes. In the late 1810s she became a friend and correspondent of Southey and, later, of his second wife Caroline Bowles. She was also on excellent terms with Walter Scott, and her Letters and Recollections of the latter was published in 1904.

Hughes, Thomas (1756–1832). Anglican clergyman and tutor to various members of the Royal Family from 1777. He became a Canon of Westminster Abbey 1793–1807, a Prebend of St Paul’s in 1807 and Vicar of Uffington in 1816. His wife, Mary Anne Hughes, was also a correspondent of Southey’s.

Hunt, James Henry Leigh (1784–1859) DNB. The child of radical, Unitarian parents, Hunt quickly earned a reputation as a poet and a theatrical critic. In 1808–1821 he was the editor of the anti-government paper The Examiner, a role that earned him two years in prison, 1813–1815, for attacking the Prince Regent. Southey was resentful of Hunt’s criticism of Coleridge and Wordsworth and thoroughly disliked The Examiner and its politics. In later life Hunt became a friend and supporter of Byron, Shelley and Keats and a well-known (though never a wealthy) man of letters.

Hussey, Arthur (1793–1862). Church of England clergyman. Educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was ordained in 1820 and, in 1822, appointed Curate at Sandhurst, Kent, where his father, William (1752–1831), was Rector 1781–1831. Later Hussey moved to Rottingdean, near Brighton, where he worked as an articled clerk. His interests included zoology, archaeology and history, and his Notes on the Churches in the Counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey was published in 1852. In 1825 Hussey wrote to Southey, objecting to a passage in The Book of the Church. Southey replied, offered to insert a correction in a future edition, and noted that in the early 1790s he had dined at the house of someone of the same name from the same part of Kent while staying with Thomas Phillipps Lamb at Rye. This was very probably Arthur Hussey’s father (Sandhurst is only eleven miles from Rye).

Hutchinson, Sara (1775-1835). 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.

Inglis, Robert Harry, 2nd Baronet (1786–1855) DNB; Hist P. Only son of Hugh Inglis, 1st Baronet (1744–1820) Hist P, Director of the East India Company and MP for Ashburton 1802–1806. Inglis was exceptionally well connected – Robert Peel was a friend from their days at Oxford University. He was also close to William Wilberforce; in 1815 he became the guardian of the nine orphaned children of their mutual friend, the banker and abolitionist Henry Thornton (1760–1815 DNB. Inglis was MP for Dundalk 1824–1826, Ripon 1828–1829, and Oxford University 1829–1854, but never held high office. Instead, he forged a reputation as a staunch defender of the Church of England and opponent of political reform. He became a correspondent of Southey’s in 1817, and the two first met in London in May of that year when Inglis introduced Southey to a number of leading politicians. Southey respected Inglis’s piety, philanthropy and commitment to the Established Church.

Jackson, Thomas (1783–1873). Wesleyan Methodist minister and writer. The son of an agricultural labourer, he was born in Lincolnshire. His formal education finished at the age of twelve when he was sent to work on a farm. This was followed by an apprenticeship to a carpenter. He became a Methodist in 1801 and was appointed an itinerant preacher in 1804. He served some of the key circuits in London and the North of England and, as a result, was an influential figure. He edited Wesleyan Methodist periodicals from 1824 until 1842, when he was appointed theological tutor at Richmond College, Surrey. He became President of the Wesleyan Conference for the first time in 1838–1839 and played a significant role in the movement’s centenary celebrations. His published writings included sermons, biographies of prominent Methodists and nonconformists, including Lives of the Early Methodist Preachers (1865), and a 14-volume edition of the works of John Wesley (1703–1791; DNB). In 1822 Southey wrote to Jackson to thank him both for a copy of his Life of John Goodwin, which had appeared earlier that year, and for his judicious appraisal of Southey’s own Life of Wesley (1820).

Jackson, William (1748–1809). Builder, owner and co-occupier of Greta Hall. A carrier by trade, Jackson was the model for Wordsworth’s ‘Benjamin the Waggoner’.

James, Harry (dates unknown). He wrote to Southey in 1803–1804, claiming that he had submitted a poem for inclusion in the Annual Anthology. Nothing further is known of him.

James, Paul Moon (1780–1854). 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.

Jardine, Alexander (d. 1799) DNB. Army officer and author. He was appointed to the post of Consul in Galicia in 1791. He was a friend of William Godwin and Joel Barlow (1754–1812; DNB), and his writings included Letters from Barbary, France, Spain, Portugal &c. (1788). He and Southey met during the latter’s 1795–1796 visit to the Iberian peninsula. He figures in both Southey’s correspondence from this period and in Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal (1797).

Jardine, Ann (dates unknown). Widow of David Jardine (1766–1797), Minister of the Trim Street Unitarian Chapel, Bath. She was the daughter of George Webster of Hampstead. The Jardines owned a small estate at Pickwick, near Bath.

Jardine, David (1794–1860) DNB. The eldest child of David Jardine (1766–1797), Minister of the Trim Street Unitarian Chapel, Bath. Jardine was an undergraduate at the University of Glasgow and Southey helped his education by lending him books. Jardine graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1813 and became a barrister in 1823. He was appointed Recorder of Bath in 1837 and a police magistrate at Bow Street, London 1839–1860. He also wrote extensively on legal history.

Jebb, John (1775–1833) DNB. Irish clergyman, who rose to be Church of Ireland Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert, and Aghadoe 1823–1833. He was a close friend of Robert Inglis. In 1818 Jebb sent Southey a copy of the second edition of his Sermons, on Subjects Chiefly Practical. This initiated a correspondence on religious and political matters that lasted until Jebb’s death.

Jeffrey, Francis, Lord Jeffrey (1773–1850) DNB; Hist P. Scottish, Whig lawyer and critic, from 1803 editor of the Edinburgh Review and, as such, Southey’s bête noire for damning reviews of his, Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s poetry (Jeffrey is credited with identifying them as a school or sect of poets; see Edinburgh Review, 1 (October 1802), 63–83). Southey affected indifference but was acutely sensitive to Jeffrey’s reviews. Jeffrey’s reluctance to support war with Napoleonic France also incurred Southey’s wrath, as appears in the notes to Carmen Triumphale (1814), in which Southey enjoys demonstrating how the Edinburgh’s predictions of defeat were erroneous as well as morale-sapping. The two men met in Edinburgh in October 1805, and Southey ever after consoled himself for the printed criticisms by remembering Jeffrey’s diminutive stature.

Jennings, James (1772–1833) DNB. Writer. Born in Huntspill, Somerset, son of a village shopkeeper, John Jennings, and his wife Elizabeth Fear. Educated locally and at North Petherton School. Apprenticed to a Bristol apothecary in 1786. He contributed poems to the European Magazine and in 1794 published The Times, a satire. Jennings moved to London shortly after his marriage to Charlotte Sawier, probably the only daughter of Southey’s landlady Mary Sawier, in 1795. He returned to work in his family’s shop in 1801 and remained in Huntspill until the mid-1810s, when economic depression led to the failure of the business. He continued with his literary pursuits, contributing to the Monthly Magazine (from 1807) and publishing Poems, Consisting of the Mysteries of Mendip, the Magic Ball (1810). He returned to London in 1817 and worked as a professional writer, with some support from Sir William Paxton, a wealthy banker. His works included the Family Cyclopaedia (1821), Observations on Some of the Dialects of the West of England (1825) and Ornithologia (1828). He founded the short-lived Metropolitan Literary Institution in 1823 and was editor of the Metropolitan Literary Journal (1824). Jennings met Southey (and Coleridge) in Bristol in c. 1794. Although they were not close friends, he and Southey corresponded and remained in contact until c. 1828. Jennings was a great admirer of Southey’s writing, but the admiration was not reciprocated. Southey nicknamed him ‘poor Trauma’ and ‘the traumatic poet’, though he admired Jennings’s ‘moral character’. Jennings shared Southey’s interest in educational methods, and in 1813, in collaboration with the local rector at Huntspill, established a school conducted on Lancaster and Bell’s monitorial systems. Jennings included anecdotes of Southey and Coleridge’s early careers in the Metropolitan Literary Journal (1824).

Jensort, H. S. (dates unknown). 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.

Jervis, John, 1st Earl of St Vincent (1735–1823) DNB; Hist P. Commander in Chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet 1796–9, 1800–1801, First Sea Lord 1801–1804.

Kelly, Montague Henry (1773–1838). Son of Captain Redmond Kelly (d. 1798), an Irish soldier who lived in Dean’s Yard, Westminster in later life and sent his three sons to Westminster School. Montague Henry Kelly attended Westminster School from1786 to 1791, where he was a friend of Southey’s. Kelly pursued a Naval career from 1791 onwards, reaching the rank of Commander in 1830, but was often in debt – he spent the years 1806–1809 in the Fleet prison. In 1801 he eloped with the sixteen-year old Eliza Smith (1785–1857), daughter of the painter, John Raphael Smith (1751–1812; DNB). The marriage was very troubled and ended in a (probably invalid) divorce in Germany.

Kelly, Thomas W. (b. c. 1800). Poet, born in London of Irish parentage. His works included Myrtle Leaves; A Collection of Poems, Chiefly Amatory (1824). He briefly corresponded with Southey in 1827 after he found one of the latter’s manuscript letters to a friend, now deceased, in a book he had purchased. He offered to return it, but Southey told him to keep the letter, on the condition that it was not published during his lifetime.

Kennaway, Charles Edward (1800–1875). 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.

Kenyon, George, 2nd Baron Kenyon (1776–1855) DNB. Lawyer, landowner in North Wales and prominent opponent of Catholic Emancipation. He was also a close friend of Andrew Bell. Once Southey agreed to write Bell’s biography, this involved him in some correspondence with Kenyon, who was a trustee of the organisation set up in Bell’s Will to promote his educational plans.

Kenyon, John (1784–1856) DNB. Kenyon was a very wealthy man. On the death of his father, John Kennion (d. c. 1792), he inherited a share in the sugar-producing estate of Chester in Trelawny, Jamaica, and the two hundred enslaved persons who worked the estate. Though he was born in the West Indies he left as a child and was educated at Charterhouse and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He lived mostly in the West Country and then London, though he also travelled a great deal. Kenyon’s first wife, Susannah Wright, died in Naples in 1818 and he married Caroline Curties (d. 1835) in 1821. Southey first met Kenyon when the latter was visiting the Lake District in 1804 and regarded Kenyon as ‘one of the very best & pleasantest men whom I have even known’. Kenyon published poetry, e.g. A Day at Tivoli with Other Verses (1849) and was well known for his generosity, especially to literary figures. He contributed to the costs of Derwent Coleridge’s education and was later a patron of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (a cousin) and Robert Browning, whom he introduced to each other. Southey and Kenyon did not meet often, though sometimes they encountered each other in surprising places – e.g. at Helen Maria Williams’s salon in Paris in May 1817. The two men remained on friendly terms for the rest of Southey’s life; Kenyon located a copy of Martin Dobrizhoffer’s Historia de Abiponibus (1784) for Southey in 1817, after Southey had fruitlessly searched for the book for ten years, and Southey took extraordinary pains to mobilise support to ensure Kenyon was elected to the Athenaeum Club in 1827. Kenyon was one of the party who accompanied Southey on his final tour of France in 1838.

Kidd, John (1775–1851). Doctor and author of medical treatises. Educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford (matric. 1793, BA 1797). A friend of Southey’s during his time at Oxford, and possibly a school friend as well.

King, Emmeline (1770–1847). Younger sister of Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849; DNB). She married John King in 1802 and the couple had two daughters.

King, John [Nicholas Johann Koenig] (1766–1846). Bristol-based surgeon, painter and linguist, originally from Berne, Switzerland. He came to England in the 1790s and studied medicine under John Abernethy (1764–1831; DNB) at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, before settling at Clifton in Bristol. He married Emmeline Edgeworth, a sister of the novelist Maria (1768–1849; DNB). Southey came to know King well when he succeeded Davy in his role at the Pneumatic Institution in 1801. Southey saw much less of King after he moved to Keswick in 1803, but he continued to speak warmly of his personal qualities and medical skill.

Knighton, William (1776–1836) DNB. Courtier and physician. He became a friend of Henry Herbert Southey while the two men were studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and set up a London practice in 1806. He was appointed physician to the Prince of Wales (the future George IV) in 1810 and gradually assumed the role of sorting out the Prince’s tangled finances. In 1822 he became Keeper of the Privy Purse and, effectively, George IV’s private secretary. Knighton furthered Henry Herbert’s career, ensuring he succeeded him as physician to George IV in 1823. Knighton also aided Robert Southey by presenting A Vision of Judgement (1821) to George IV.

Knowles, Herbert (1798–1817) DNB. A member of a family of Nonconformist cloth merchants and manufacturers from Gomersal, near Leeds, Herbert was orphaned in 1805. His relatives eventually recognized his academic talents and he was sent to Richmond Grammar School. Knowles was concerned that he did not have the funds to enter Cambridge University (and possibly that his family would not be prepared to support his ambition to study there). In October 1816 he sent one of his poems, ‘The Three Tabernacles’ (also known as ‘Lines written in the Churchyard of Richmond, Yorkshire’), to Southey, asking permission to dedicate it to him. The latter saw great promise, was moved by Knowles’s situation, and raised funds to help him take up a place at Cambridge. Knowles was elected a sizar at St John’s College on 31 January 1817, but died on 17 February 1817 and was buried at Heckmondwike Independent Chapel. In 1819 Southey included ‘Lines’ at the end of an article in the Quarterly Review, paying tribute to Knowles’s ‘extraordinary merits’ and ability to write with ‘such strength and originality upon the tritest of all subjects’ (Quarterly Review, 21 (April 1819), 396–398).

Knox, William (1789–1825). Born in Roxburghshire, Knox was the son of a farmer. He attended Musselburgh grammar school and between 1812–1817 farmed at Wrae, near Langholm, Dumfriesshire. He returned to live with his parents after his farm failed. The family settled in Edinburgh in 1820 and Knox became a writer, supported by John Wilson, who often gave him money. Knox contributed to the Literary Gazette and other journals and published three collections of his own poetry: The Lonely Hearth (1818); The Songs of Israel (1824); and The Harp of Zion (1825). In early November 1825, he suffered a stroke and died a few days later. Southey and Knox corresponded in 1824 when the latter sent the Poet Laureate a copy of The Songs of Israel.

Koster, Henry (1793–1820). Son of the Lisbon merchant, John Theodore Koster. At the age of only sixteen his father sent him to Brazil, both for his health and to set up as a sugar planter. Koster travelled extensively in Pernambuco and returned to England only briefly in 1811 and again in 1815. On the latter occasion, his visit to Southey in Keswick turned into a prolonged stay after Koster was injured in a coach accident. Koster had already aided Southey’s History of Brazil (1810–1819) by locating manuscript material in Pernambuco; in 1815 he helped Southey decipher Portuguese texts and set about translating the first volume of the History of Brazil into Portuguese. He also accompanied Southey on his visit to the Low Countries in the autumn of 1815. Southey encouraged Koster to publish his journal of his time in Brazil as Travels in Brazil (1816), a widely admired book that is still an important source for the social history of North East Brazil. Koster returned to Pernambuco in 1816 and died there in 1820.

Koster, John Theodore (1750–1828). English sugar merchant, whom Southey met in Portugal during his visit of 1800–1801 and again in Liverpool in 1804. Koster lodged in Keswick in 1815–1816 after suffering heavy financial losses and later relocated to France, where he died at Bordeaux. Koster’s home in Lisbon was a meeting place for those interested in the arts and sciences and he was a man of wide interests, a member of the Portuguese Royal Academy of Sciences and a writer on economic matters, including A Statement of the Trade in Gold Bullion (1811). His son, Henry Koster, was also a friend of Southey’s.

Koster, Susanna Maria (née Carrett; 1760–1842). Wife of John Theodore Koster, whom she married in Lisbon in 1778. The couple had twelve children, many of whom died young.

Laing, David (1793–1878) DNB. 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.

Lamb, Charles (1775–1834) DNB. Essayist, best known for Essays of Elia (1823). Lamb was the son of John Lamb (c. 1725–1779), a lawyer’s clerk, and grew up in the Inner Temple in central London. Charles Lamb was educated at Christ’s Hospital 1782–1789, where he became a close friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and began work as a clerk in the Accountant’s Office of the East India Company in 1792. Much of Lamb’s life was dominated by the need to care for his older sister, Mary Lamb, who stabbed their mother to death in 1796 and was subject to bouts of insanity. However, their home became the centre of a literary salon and Lamb was a well-known figure in London literary society. While he published poetry and plays, it was as an essayist that he became increasingly well-known from 1811 onwards. Lamb and Southey were introduced by Coleridge in 1795. Their relationship started to blossom in 1797, when Lamb — accompanied by Charles Lloyd — paid Southey an unexpected visit. Southey and Lamb shared an interest in Francis Quarles (1592–1644; DNB). After Southey moved to Keswick they saw much less of each other. They quarrelled briefly — and publicly — in 1823, when Southey criticised Lamb’s remarks on religion in Essays of Elia, but the two men were soon reconciled when they met in London later that year. Southey retained his affection for Lamb and regard for his work throughout his life. Although they corresponded, almost all of Southey’s letters to Lamb have not survived.

Lamb, Mary Anne (1764–1847) DNB. Writer. Sister of Charles Lamb. She suffered from bouts of insanity and in 1796 she killed their mother. After this incident she was cared for by her brother or in asylums. The siblings wrote Tales from Shakespeare (1809) together.

Lamb, Thomas Davis (1775–1818) Hist P. Politician. The eldest son of Thomas Phillipps Lamb and his wife Elizabeth Davis. Educated at Westminster (adm. 1788); Edinburgh University (1792) and Christ Church, Oxford (matric. Dec 1793). Lamb’s family were wealthy, politically influential and well-connected. His father was the government manager at Rye, Sussex. Lamb’s career benefited from the patronage of Lord Liverpool (1727–1808; DNB) and his eldest son, Lord Hawkesbury, a future Prime Minister. Lamb was private secretary to Hawkesbury, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1801–1802, and in 1802 was offered but rejected the consulship at Lisbon, a post worth between £2000–2500 per year. He sat as an MP for Rye from 1802–1806, though he seems never to have spoken in the House of Commons. He vacated his seat when appointed to the post of Law Clerk at the Home Office by the Ministry of ‘Talents’. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather and father, he was Mayor of Rye from 1803–1804, 1809–1810 and 1816–1817. He never married. Southey described Lamb as ‘one of my oldest — & once one of my most intimate friends’. The two met whilst pupils at Westminster and Southey stayed with Lamb’s family in Rye on more than one occasion. They drifted apart (though, Southey later noted, ‘without dissention’) during Southey’s time at Oxford. Lamb seems to have made an effort to renew their acquaintance, seeking Southey out in London in 1802. In later years, however, Southey’s opinion of him soured. He described him as one who had ‘discarded decency’ and on reading of Lamb’s death in a newspaper admitted that he had: ‘ ... thought more of him, poor fellow, in consequence, than I had done for the last four-and-twenty years ... [He] had become a mere idle heir of fortune, and not having his estates to manage while his father lived, had not even that occupation to keep him from frivolities. He was an old man at thirty, and that too being of a family in which it is degeneracy to die at an age short of fourscore.’

Lamb, Thomas Phillipps (?1752–1819) Hist P. Politician. The father of Thomas Davis Lamb. He was married to Elizabeth Davis and lived at Mountsfield Lodge, near Rye. By the mid-eighteenth century the Lamb family had become the dominant force on Rye corporation and wielded great political influence in the borough. Lamb was the government agent in Rye and sat as an MP for the town 1812–1816 and 1819, though (like his son) he is not known to have spoken in the House of Commons. He was Mayor of Rye some 18 times between 1775–1817. Southey twice visited the Lambs home in Rye in 1791 and 1792 and was on excellent terms with Thomas Phillipps Lamb, perhaps seeing him as a surrogate father-figure. Their correspondence lapsed during Southey’s time at Oxford and was briefly renewed in 1798.

Lancaster, Joseph (1778–1838) DNB. The educationalist whose monitorial system of teaching mirrored that of Southey’s friend Andrew Bell. Although a Quaker, and opposed to corporal punishment, Lancaster’s disciplinary methods, involving public humiliation and confinement, lost him Southey’s approval. Bell relentlessly promoted his own Anglican educational system over Lancaster’s, and Lancaster found greater success in the United States, Mexico and South America.

Landor, Julia (née Thuillier; 1794–1879) DNB. The daughter of an unsuccessful banker, she married Landor on 24 May 1811. They lived firstly on Landor’s estate at Lanthony and then in Italy. The Landors had three sons and one daughter, but by the 1830s their marriage was troubled. Landor left his wife in 1835 and settled first in England and then Italy.

Landor, Robert Eyres (1781–1869) DNB. Writer and clergyman. Youngest brother of Walter Savage Landor.

Landor, Walter Savage (1775–1864) DNB. Writer and poet (in English and Latin) whose 1798 Gebir, Southey declared, contained ‘some of the most exquisite poetry in the language’. Landor inherited wealth in 1805 and in 1808 met Southey at Bristol, offering to pay for the publication of future poems that Southey might write. Thus encouraged, Southey completed The Curse of Kehama (1810), sending drafts to Landor, and Roderick the Last of the Goths (1814). In 1812 Landor himself published a blank verse tragedy on Spain, Count Julian, with Southey’s help. In 1808 Landor went to Spain to fight with the Spanish against their French occupiers. Upon landing at Corunna, he ‘immediately gave the governor ten thousand reals for the relief of Venturada, which had been sacked by the French’. He engaged in some minor action at Bilbao and ‘had the satisfaction of serving three launches with powder and muskets, and of carrying on my shoulders six or seven miles a child too heavy for its exhausted mother’ (quoted by Malcolm Elwin, Savage Landor (London, 1941), pp. 101–102). Thoroughly disgusted by the Convention of Cintra, and believing that he had been insulted by Charles Stuart, Baron Stuart de Rothesay (1779–1845 DNB, British envoy to the Spanish juntas in French-occupied Spain, he returned to England and from 1809, he lived at Llanthony Abbey in Wales, where Southey visited him in 1811. Landor left England to live in France and Italy in 1814. He received Southey’s advice on his Imaginary Conversations (1824–28), visited Southey in Keswick in 1832, returned to England in 1836 and met Southey for the last time in Bristol in 1837. In 1843 Landor published a tribute after Southey’s death in The Examiner; he also sought advancement for Charles Cuthbert, Southey’s son, in the church. Admired by Dickens, Browning, Swinburne and Trollope, Landor spent his final years in Italy and died in Florence.

La Touche, Thomas Digges (1799–1853). Church of Ireland clergyman, from a prominent family of bankers and landowners of Huguenot descent. He was Rector of Killenaule, Co. Tipperary. He stayed in Keswick in 1827 with his wife and family and became very friendly with Southey and his family. He sent gifts on his return home, for which Southey wrote to thank him.

Latrobe, Christian Ignatius (1758–1836) DNB. 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.

Lawrence, Mary (1780–1859). A Unitarian member of the circle of William Roscoe in Liverpool, whom Southey met on his visit there in February 1808. Lawrence ran a school, the Gateacre Academy, with her sisters Sarah and Eliza. A native of Birmingham, she moved to Leamington in later life.

Lawrence, Thomas (1769-1830) DNB. 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.

Le Grice, Samuel (1775–1802). Soldier. The younger brother of Coleridge’s school fellow, Charles Valentine Le Grice (1773–1858). Educated at Christ’s Hospital, where he was a contemporary and friend of Charles Lamb, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He obtained an army commission and died in Jamaica.

Lewis, Richard (1771–1843). Clergyman and schoolmaster. Educated at Balliol and Corpus Christi Colleges, Oxford (matric. 1792, BA 1796). He became a curate and master of the grammar school in Honiton, Devon. A friend of Southey’s at Oxford, they lost touch in later years.

Leyden, John (1746–1839). A farmer from the area around Hawick, Roxburghshire, and father of the linguist and poet, John Leyden (1775–1811; DNB). In 1826 Southey wrote to Leyden to thank him for a copy of the Memoirs of Zehir-ed-Din Muhammed Baber, Emperor of Hindustan, published earlier that year. This combined his late son’s unfinished translation from the Eastern Turkish original with one by William Erskine (1773–1852; DNB) from a Persian version of the text.

Lightfoot, John Prideaux (1803–1887). Eldest son of Southey’s schoolfriend from Westminster, Nicholas Lightfoot. He was a clergyman and long-serving Rector of Exeter College, Oxford, 1854–1887.

Lightfoot, Nicholas (c. 1771/2–1847). Clergyman and schoolmaster. Son of Nicholas Lightfoot of Moretonhampstead, Devon. Educated at Balliol College, Oxford (matric. 1790, BA 1794). Perpetual curate for Churcheton, Devon from 1795 and Rector of Stockleigh Pomeroy from 1831–1847. Southey met Lightfoot at Balliol and their friendship endured until his death. Southey briefly considered sending his brother Edward Southey to be educated by Lightfoot and in later life stayed with him during visits to the south west of England.

Littleton, Edward, 4th Baronet (1726–1812) Hist P. Of Penkridge, Staffordshire, who lived at Teddesley Hall, where Mary Barker resided as his companion. Littleton was MP for Staffordshire from 1784 to 1812. Mary Barker’s brother-in-law, William Brewe (dates unknown), was his steward.

Liverpool, Lord: Jenkinson, Robert Banks, Lord Hawkesbury/2nd Earl of Liverpool (1770–1828) DNB; Hist P. 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. 

Llangollen, Ladies of. See Eleanor Charlotte Butler (1739–1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755–1832)

Lloyd, Charles (1775–1839) DNB. Poet. Eldest child of Charles, a wealthy Quaker banker, and his wife Mary. He matriculated at Caius College, Cambridge in 1798 but did not take his degree. He married Sophia Pemberton in 1799 and they moved to Ambleside in 1800. His works included: contributions to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Poems (1797), Blank Verse (1798) (co-authored with Charles Lamb), the controversial roman-à-clef Edmund Oliver (1798), Nugae Canorae (1819), Desultory Thoughts in London (1821), Poetical Essays on the Character of Pope (1821), and The Duke d’Ormond (1822). Lloyd met Southey at Burton in August 1797, when he and Charles Lamb unexpectedly turned up on Southey’s doorstep. Lloyd remained with Southey and his family for several months. Southey recognised in him a fellow man of strong emotions, a kindred — yet also unlike — spirit, and worried that Lloyd’s ‘feelings ... are not so blunt as we could wish them — or as they should be for his own happiness’. Indeed Lloyd’s continued presence was increasingly unwelcome and in 1798 his tale-telling led to a major quarrel between Southey and Coleridge which was not healed until 1799. After Southey moved to Keswick in 1803, he and his family saw Lloyd, who lived at Low Brathay near Ambleside, regularly. Lloyd’s later life was clouded by mental illness. He was briefly confined in the Quaker-run asylum The Retreat, York, and died in a sanatorium near Versailles. In his edition of Cowper (1836–1837), Southey made his final public observations on Lloyd’s tragic history: ‘[his] intellectual powers were of a very high order ... when in company with persons who were not informed of his condition, no one could descry in him the slightest appearance of a deranged mind.’

Lloyd, Charles, Senior (1748–1828) DNB. Quaker banker and translator of Homer. Father of Charles Lloyd.

Lloyd, Sophia. See Pemberton, Sophia (d. 1830)

Locker, Edward Hawke (1777–1849) DNB. Locker initially held a number of administrative posts in the Navy, concluding his career as private secretary to Lord Exmouth (1757–1833; DNB) during the latter’s time as commander in the Mediterranean, 1811–1814. Southey first wrote to Locker in search of information for his History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832), but the two shared many interests and the correspondence continued. Locker was the editor of the patriotic journal, the Plain Englishman (1820–1823), to which Southey contributed poems, and played an important role in developing Greenwich Naval Hospital 1819–1844.

Locker, Eleanor Mary Elizabeth, née Boucher (1793–1861). She was the daughter of Jonathan Boucher (1738–1804), an English clergyman who worked in Virginia 1759–1775 and became a friend of George Washington. She married Edward Hawke Locker in 1815.

Lockhart, John Gibson (1794–1854) DNB. Scottish writer. He made his reputation through his contributions to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine from 1817 onwards and became Walter Scott’s son-in-law in 1820. He was editor of the Quarterly Review 1825–1853 and completed a monumental Life of Sir Walter Scott (1837–1838). Southey corresponded with him intermittently on professional matters.

Longman, Thomas Norton (1771–1842) DNB. Senior partner in a long-established and prestigious firm of London publishers. Southey began publishing with Longman and his partners in 1799 and their association continued until his final collection, Poetical Works (1837–1838). Southey often jokingly referred to the firm as ‘the Long Men’ or ‘Our Fathers’ (since their premises were in Paternoster Row). He also nicknamed Longman ‘Artaxerxes’ (465–424 BC) and ‘the King of Persia’ because the Persian emperor had been named Longimanus by the Romans.

Longmire, John Martyn (1781–1854). 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.

Losh, James (1763–1833) DNB. 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.

Lovell family. A family of Bristol-based Quakers and pin manufacturers. Robert Lovell (1746–1804) and his first wife Edith Bourne (1745–1782) had two sons, Joseph and Robert (Southey’s brother-in-law), and five daughters. Lovell’s second marriage to Lydia Hill (1754–1816) produced five more children. Southey was on reasonable terms with all the Lovells, but their relationship was clouded by struggles over adequate financial provision for the son and widow of Robert Lovell.

Lovell, John Hill (1790–1855). 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.

Lovell, Mary. See Fricker, Mary (1771–1862)

Lovell, Robert (1771–1796) DNB. Poet. Born in Bristol, the son of a wealthy Quaker manufacturer (initially of cabinets and later of pins), and his first wife Edith Bourne, a Quaker minister. Lovell possibly entered the manufacturing business (on his death he was described as a pin manufacturer) but was ill at ease in the commercial world. In 1794 he married Mary Fricker. His family disapproved of the match because she was not a Quaker and had worked as an actress. Their son, also named Robert, was born in 1795. Lovell died at Bristol on 3 May 1796 of a fever contracted on a trip to Salisbury and exacerbated by refusing to take medical advice before returning home. One of his final letters to his wife is in the Huntington Library, San Marino, another in Bristol Reference Library. Lovell’s father was reluctant to provide regular financial support for Mary Lovell and her child, and both became part of Southey’s extended household. Lovell and Southey were introduced by Sarah Fricker in Bristol in late 1793. Lovell was also a poet, his Bristol: A Satire appeared in 1794, and he and Southey embarked on a period of collaboration: planning two co-authored collections, only one of which was published under the pseudonyms ‘Bion’ [Southey] and ‘Moschus’ [Lovell] in late 1794. Lovell was also involved in the 1794 revisions to Southey’s Joan of Arc. The advent of Coleridge in summer–autumn 1794 seems to have led (at least temporarily) to a reorientation of literary relationships. Lovell was pushed to the margins. His contribution to The Fall of Robespierre was dropped and Coleridge was openly critical of his poetry. Lovell was, however, involved in Pantisocracy and it was through him that Southey and Coleridge were introduced to Joseph Cottle. After Lovell’s death, Southey tried — and failed — to produce a subscription edition of his poems, to raise money for his widow and child. However, Lovell’s writings were included in the Annual Anthology (1799 and 1800) and Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807). In a notice published in Literary Memoirs of Living Authors of Great Britain (1798), David Rivers described Lovell’s poetry as being ‘entitled to considerable distinction’. Southey described receiving the news of Lovell’s death as ‘the most sudden check I ever experienced’. The full extent of their relationship is difficult to gauge because of the survival of only two letters from what must have been an extensive correspondence.

Lovell, Robert, Junior (1795–1836). The son of Mary and Robert Lovell, his father’s early death left him with few prospects (significantly less than those of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s children, whose paternal relations were capable of greater generosity). In 1803 the money paid by the Lovell family for his education ceased. Southey and John May tried to get Robert Lovell Junior into Christ’s Hospital. They failed. The boy was apprenticed to a London printer and effectively separated from his mother, who lived with the Southeys in Keswick. The impact of this on his character seems to have been profound. In 1836 his first cousin Sara Coleridge described his lack of social skills: ‘From nine years old he has had to shift and scramble a good deal for himself, to bear up against a hard world which would have crushed <or injured> the frame it did not render to a certain degree tough & unyielding ... [he] never had the opportunity of acquiring a taste for domestic, scarcely even for social enjoyment: we ought not to wonder that he is deficient in many qualities which can only be fostered thereby.’ Robert Lovell Junior predeceased his mother. He disappeared whilst on a European walking tour in 1836.

Lowther, Augusta, Countess of Lonsdale (1761–1838). Born Lady Augusta Fane, daughter of John Fane, 9th Earl of Westmorland (1728–1774). In 1781 she married William Lowther, who became 1st Earl of Lonsdale in 1807) the couple had six children. The Countess encouraged artists and writers to visit their main home at Lowther Castle and Southey confessed ‘Lowther is the only place of its kind to which I can reconcile myself, because there are plenty of old books there, and there is a kindness about Lady Lonsdale which makes one think nothing about her rank, or rather, which makes one like her in spite of her rank.’ During a week at Lowther Castle in 1821, Southey wrote ‘Lines, Written in Lady Lonsdale’s Album, At Lowther Castle, Oct. 13. 1821’, which was later published in Joanna Baillie’s A Collection of Poems, Chiefly Manuscript, And From Living Authors (1823).

Lowther, William, 1st Earl of Lonsdale (1757–1844) DNB. From 1802, when he inherited vast estates in Cumberland and Westmoreland, one of the wealthiest and most powerful landowners in the country. A Tory, Lowther became the patron of Wordsworth, arranging for him to be given the government post of Distributor of Stamps. Southey and Lowther were on good terms, and Southey made several visits to Lowther castle.

Lundie, Robert (1774–1832). 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).

Maber, George Martin (d. 1844). Clergyman. Educated at St Paul’s School, London and then at Cambridge. He was personal chaplain to Lord Bute and from 1795 Rector of Merthyr Tydfil. Maber and Southey met during a voyage to Portugal in November 1795.

Malkin, Arthur (1803–1888). Civil engineer, writer and alpinist. Son of Benjamin Heath Malkin (1769–1842; DNB), headmaster of the grammar school at Bury St Edmunds 1809–1828. He visited Southey in 1824. His connection to Southey was probably through Susannah Henry, William Peachy’s second wife, whose mother lived in Bury St Edmunds.

Malone, Catherine (c. 1749–1831). Unmarried sister of Lord Sunderlin. Southey got to know the family well when they visited the Lakes in 1812–1813.

Markland, James Heywood (1788–1864) DNB. Antiquary. Born in Manchester, in 1808 he moved to London to practise law. He married Charlotte (d. 1867), daughter of Sir Francis Freeling, in 1821. Markland was a committed Anglican, collector of fine editions, and writer on literary history, and on antiquarian and religious subjects. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, member of the Roxburghe Club, and, after retiring to Bath in 1841, an active member of the Royal Archaeological Institute and the British Archaeological Association. He corresponded very intermittently with Southey on antiquarian matters.

Marshall, John (1765–1845) DNB; Hist P. Wealthy businessman, who developed factory-based flax-spinning in Leeds. He was a close friend of William Wordsworth through his wife Jane Pollard (1770–1847), who had been at school in Halifax with Dorothy Wordsworth. He visited the Lake District regularly following his marriage in 1795, built a country home at Hallsteads on the shores of Ullswater in 1815 and was Sheriff of Cumberland in 1821. Later, in 1832, he bought the Derwentwater Estates. Southey wrote to him in 1827 to inform him that Derwentwater was covered in flies.

Mason, Henry Joseph Monck (1778–1858) DNB. 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.

Maynard, Miss (dates unknown). 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.

Maurice, Michael (1766–1855). Unitarian minister and schoolmaster. Born at Eastwood, Yorkshire, he was educated at Leeds Grammar, Hoxton Academy and Hackney College. In 1787 he converted to Unitarianism. From 1787–1792 he was assistant minister of the Old Meeting, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. He was a foundation member of the Unitarian Society in 1791 and in 1792 was elected evening preacher at the chapel at Hackney in which Joseph Priestley preached in the mornings. In 1794 he married Priscilla Hurry, daughter of a Yarmouth timber merchant. They had ten children, of whom the fifth was the theologian Frederick Denison Maurice (1805–1872; DNB). Maurice was distantly connected by marriage to William Taylor. The latter was involved in securing a place for Henry Herbert Southey at the school Maurice ran at Normanston manor house, near the Suffolk port of Lowestoft.

May, John (1775–1856). Merchant, financier and business agent. A member of a wealthy family, both his father (Joseph) and grandfather were successful merchants in Lisbon. He was educated at Newcome’s Academy, Hackney, where he was taught by George Coleridge, with whom he became lifelong friends. May went to Lisbon in 1793, in order to learn the family trade, returning to England in 1796. May married Susannah Frances Livius in 1799. The marriage produced four children. May and Southey met in Portugal in 1796. Their friendship was to last until the latter’s death. May acted as a financial adviser and agent to Southey, lending him money — including sums to finance Henry Herbert Southey’s education — and purchasing goods on his behalf. Southey reciprocated when May experienced a severe financial crisis in 1821 by lending him his life savings of £620. May visited the Southeys on several occasions and acted as godfather to Southey’s two eldest children — Margaret Edith and Edith May, the latter named in his honour. The Poet’s Pilgrimage to Waterloo (1816) was dedicated to him ‘in testimony of the highest esteem and affection’.

May, Susannah Frances (née Livius; 1767–1830). Wife of John May, whom she married in 1799.

Miller, John (1787–1858). Clergyman. Educated at the University of Oxford, where he won the Chancellor’s Medal for Latin prose and became a great friend of John Keble (1792–1866; DNB). In 1817 he delivered the University’s Bampton Lectures, on the subject of ‘The Divine Authority of Holy Scripture’. When he met Southey in 1820, Miller was a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, and Curate of Bishopstone, Wiltshire. He sent Southey a copy of his work, most probably his Bampton lectures. Miller’s other writings at this time included A Christian Guide for Plain People, and Especially for the Poor (1820).

Milman, Henry Hart (1791–1868) DNB. Clergyman, poet and historian. His brilliant career at the University of Oxford included winning the Newdigate Prize in 1812 and he was elected Professor of Poetry 1821–1831. He became a Fellow of Brasenose College in 1814 and was ordained in 1816. Milman’s ecclesiastical career was equally illustrious, despite controversies over his orthodoxy prompted by his History of the Jews (1830), and he became a Canon of Westminster Abbey in 1835 and Dean of St Paul’s in 1849. Milman contributed regularly to the Quarterly Review, had many friends in literary life and continued to enjoy as much prominence as a writer as he did as a cleric. His poetry included the epic, Samor, Lord of the Bright City (1818); in later life he concentrated on history, especially his History of Latin Christianity down to the Death of Pope Nicholas V (1855).

Mitford, George (1760–1842). 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.

Mitford, John (1781–1859) DNB. Suffolk clergyman, who took little interest in his parochial duties but played an important role in London literary life. He was a noted editor (especially of the works of Thomas Gray), editor of the Gentlemans Magazine 1834–1850, and close friend of Samuel Rogers and Bernard Barton. In 1810 he wrote to Southey for advice about his poem, Agnes, the Indian Captive (1811).

Moncreiff, James Wellwood, 9th Baronet (1776–1851) DNB. 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.

Montagu, Anna Dorothea (née Benson; 1773–1856). A former friend of Robert Burns, the widow of Thomas Skepper, a lawyer in York, and daughter of Edward Benson, a York wine merchant. She was Mary Barker’s friend, and married Basil Montagu in 1808.

Montagu, Basil (1770–1851) DNB. Lawyer and author, illegitimate son of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718–1792; DNB) and the actress Martha Ray (d. 1779; DNB). Montague, like Southey, was a member of Gray’s Inn, and was called to the Bar in 1798. He was a friend of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and in 1795 Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, undertook the upbringing of his two-year old son, Basil (1793–1830), by his first wife who had died in childbirth in 1793. His second marriage, in 1806, was to Laura Rush (d. 1806). Like his first wife, she died in childbirth. In 1808 Montagu married his housekeeper and children’s governess, Anna Dorothea Benson (1773–1856). Montagu had three sons with his second wife, and two sons and a daughter with his third.

Montgomery, James (1771–1854) DNB. A radical journalist and poet. His father was a Moravian pastor and missionary and Montgomery was educated at the Moravian school at Fulneck, near Leeds. He was the editor of the Sheffield Iris newspaper from 1794 to 1825, and was twice imprisoned in the 1790s for publishing articles critical of the authorities. He authored The Wanderer of Switzerland (1807), a poem severely criticised in the Edinburgh Review (Southey sympathised). He also wrote the anti-slavery poem The West Indies (1809) and a series of long historical epics, including Greenland (1819). Southey admired much about Montgomery’s verse (a feeling he shared with Byron), and Southey and Montgomery were occasional correspondents.

Moor, Edward (1771–1848) DNB. Army officer and writer. He served in the army of the East India Company, rising to the rank of Major. After retiring back to his home county of Suffolk due to ill health, he produced the Hindu Pantheon (1810), which for over fifty years was the only authoritative book in English on the subject, and thus widely consulted. Other publications included Hindu Infanticide: an Account of the Measures Adopted for Suppressing the Practice (1811), Oriental Fragments (1834), and Suffolk Words and Phrases (1823). He was a founding member of the Royal Asiatic Society and was elected to membership of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1796), the Royal Society (1806), and the Society of Antiquaries (1818). Moor was on good terms with Bernard Barton and Thomas Clarkson, both part of Southey’s extended circle. He corresponded with Southey in the late 1810s and early 1820s, offering him the use of the papers of his brother-in-law, Sir Augustus Simon Frazer (1776–1835 DNB, to help with Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).

Moore, Thomas (1779–1852) DNB. Irish poet, playwright, and satirist, who in later life turned to writing biography, including a life of his friend Byron, whose Whig politics he shared. As a poet Moore achieved commercial success with his Poetical Works of the Late Thomas Little (1801); subsequent volumes included Irish Melodies (1808–1834), Intercepted Letters, or, The Twopenny Post-Bag (1813), and The Fudge Family in Paris (1818). Southey’s oriental romances Thalaba and Kehama were important influences on Moore’s Lalla Rookh (1814). However, he did not hold Moore’s work in high regard and in 1807 used an Annual Review essay on the latter’s Epistles, Odes and Other Poems (1806) to accuse him of being ‘a corrupter of the public morals’.

More, Hannah (1745–1833) DNB. Writer, educationist and conservative. More was born in Bristol, where her father, Jacob More (1700–1783) founded a series of schools. More taught in these schools until an annuity she received as compensation from her ex-fiancée for breaking off their engagement allowed her to concentrate on literature. Her first efforts were pastoral plays, and from 1773–1774 onwards she visited London regularly and became well-known in literary circles. In the late 1780s she became increasingly close to some of the leading evangelical Churchmen and an advocate of the abolition of slavery. Her works became steadily more serious in tone and centred on promoting morality in society. More was a virulent conservative and opponent of the French Revolution and her Cheap Repository Tracts, published in 1795–1798, were aimed at promoting conservative and patriotic values among working class readers. She remained involved in a number of charity schools she founded in Somerset, which possessed a similar aim. Southey and More met in October 1795, when he visited her house at Cowslip Green, just outside Bristol.

Morgan, John James (d. 1820). Businessman. His friendship with Southey dated from their time as pupils at Williams’ School, Bristol. From 1810–1816, Morgan and his wife took in Samuel Taylor Coleridge and attempted to cure him of his opium addiction. When Morgan’s finances collapsed in 1819, Southey, Charles Lamb and other friends contributed to an annuity for him.

Morgan, Mary, (née Brent; b. 1782). The wife of one of Southey’s oldest friends, John James Morgan. She was the daughter of Moses Brent (d. 1817), a silversmith, and had married John James Morgan in 1800.

Morris, Robert (dates unknown). Southey wrote to him in 1826 about Hartley Coleridge’s annuity from William Jackson, which was secured on the Greta Hall estate. It has otherwise not been possible to identify Morris.

Morris, William Richard (1802–1849). Fourth son of John Morris (1765–1840), Director of the East India Company. From 1818 he was a member of the Bombay civil service. He befriended the East India Company army officer and historian James Grant Duff (1789–1858; DNB) and acted as his ‘first assistant’ on a three-volume History of the Mahrattas (1826). In 1826 Southey wrote to him to thank him for a copy of the History.

Morrison, John (dates unknown). 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.

Mudford, William (1782–1848). Writer, translator and journalist. Born in London, the son of a shopkeeper in Piccadilly. His first novel, Augustus and Mary, was published in 1803. Thereafter Mudford moved between translation, editing and writing biographies, fiction and journalism. His best-known writings were short stories for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, especially ‘The Iron Shroud’ (1830), which may have inspired Edgar Allen Poe’s (1809–1849) ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ (1842). Mudford was a committed Tory and a strong supporter of George Canning, opinions that were reflected in his career as a journalist. He first worked on the Morning Chronicle, before joining the staff of the Courier, editing that newspaper from c. 1817 until 1828. He then moved to Kent where he became the editor, and later the owner, of the Kentish Observer, before finishing his career as editor of the Sunday newspaper, John Bull 1841–1848. Southey addressed the two letters he published in the Courier in 1822 and 1824 to the editor of the newspaper, who, at that time, was Mudford.

Murray, John Samuel (1778–1843) DNB. Publisher, who inherited his business from his father, John (1737–1793; DNB). After Murray took sole control of the firm in 1803, he proved a shrewd businessman. He published everything from cookery books and cheap reprints to the works of Byron, Scott, Crabbe and Jane Austen. After he purchased the business and premises at 50 Albemarle Street of William Miller (1769–1844; DNB) in 1812, he was at the centre of London literary life. In 1809 Murray launched the Quarterly Review, to which Southey became a contributor, and the two began to correspond regularly. Murray also published some of Southey’s other works, most importantly the Life of Nelson (1813), which developed from an article in the Quarterly Review.

Nares, Robert (1753–1829) DNB. Philologist, clergyman and reviewer. From 1779–1783 Nares was tutor to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn and his older brother, Watkin. He was Usher at Westminster School from 1786–1788, where he continued his tutoring of the Wynn boys and where he undoubtedly met Charles Wynn’s friend Southey. In 1793 Nares was the founder-editor of the pro-government review the British Critic.

Nash, Edward (1778–1821). 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.

Nash, William (1780–1837). Brother of Edward Nash. Southey corresponded with him occasionally following Edward Nash’s death in January 1821.

Neale, Cornelius (1789–1823). Clergyman and writer. He was the son of James Neale (c. 1760–1814), a china manufacturer and member of the London Missionary Society. Educated at St John’s, Cambridge, Cornelius was appointed to a curacy in Leicestershire after his ordination. His Mustapha: A Tragedy (1814) was dedicated to Southey.

Nichols, James (1785–1861). Master printer and theological writer. Born in County Durham and brought up in Yorkshire, his early career was as a provincial printer. He moved to London in 1820. A keen promoter of Methodism, he published the proceedings of the first Methodist missionary meeting in Leeds (1813), printed the Arminian or Methodist Magazine (1831–1861), and edited Samuel Wesley’s Poems (1842, 1862). He was also interested in English and European religious history, and in 1824 he published Calvinism and Arminianism Compared in Their Principles and Tendency. He sent a copy to Southey, who expressed his admiration for Nichols’s scholarship.

Nichols, John (1745–1826) DNB. 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).

Noel, Leland (1797–1870). Youngest son of the Leicestershire landowner Gerard Noel Edwards (afterwards Noel; 1759–1838) Hist P, MP for Maidstone 1784–1788 and Rutland 1788–1808, 1814–1838. Leland Noel took holy orders and became Vicar of Chipping Campden 1824–1832 and then Rector of Exton 1832–1870, a living held by his family. With Charles Edward Kennaway, he visited Southey in Keswick in October 1820, dining at Greta Hall and going on mountain walks with the Poet Laureate.

Opie, Amelia (1769–1853) DNB. Writer. Born in Norwich, her father was the physician James Alderson (d. 1825). Brought up in progressive, Unitarian circles, she published poetry in the radical Norwich periodical, The Cabinet, in 1794. In 1798 she married the painter, John Opie (1761–1807; DNB) and moved to London, only returning to Norwich on his death in 1807. Opie contributed poems to Southey’s Annual Anthology (1799) and (1800) and became a prolific novelist after the success of Father and Daughter (1801). In 1825 she converted to Quakerism and devoted the rest of her life to charitable works.

Palfrey, John Gorham (1796–1881). American theologian and politician. He was the son of John (1768–1843) and Mary Sturgis Gorham Palfrey (1772–1803) and the grandson of William Palfrey (1741–1781), prosperous merchant and Paymaster General of the Continental Army. He was educated at Harvard and in 1818 was ordained as Minister of the Brattle Street Church, Boston. In 1823 he married Mary Ann Hammond (1800–1897). In 1830 he was selected to succeed Andrews Norton as Professor of Sacred Literature at Harvard. He also became the first Dean of the university’s Divinity School. Palfrey supplemented his income as editor of the Christian Disciple (renamed the Christian Examiner in 1824–1825 and the North American Review, 1835–1843. The son of a slave owner, he was an active abolitionist. His engagement in political life led to his being elected to the House of Representatives (1847–1848) for the Fourth Congressional District. In later life he became Postmaster of Boston and researched and wrote a History of New England (1858). Palfrey visited Southey at his home in Keswick in 1825.

Palgrave, Francis (formerly Cohen; 1788–1861) DNB. Archivist, historian, and contributor to both the Edinburgh Review and the Quarterly Review. Although he spent his early career in a solicitor’s office and later qualified for the Bar, Palgrave's historical and antiquarian interests won out. He was appointed a Sub-Commissioner of the Record Commission in 1822 and in the following year changed his name and converted from Judaism to Anglicanism on his marriage to Elizabeth (1799–1852), a daughter of Dawson Turner. He published widely on historical subjects and also edited numerous volumes of historical documents. In 1838 he became the executive head of the newly established Public Record Office, a post he held until his death. He was an occasional correspondent of Southey’s.

Palmer, Miss. A close friend of Southey’s aunt, Elizabeth Tyler. Her father was John Palmer (1702/3–1788), proprietor of the Theatre Royal, Bath, and her only brother the theatre proprietor and postal reformer John Palmer (1742–1818; DNB).

Parry, Caleb Hillier (1755–1832) DNB. Physician. He was educated at the Warrington Academy and Edinburgh and settled in Bath in November 1779. He developed a large practice and participated in local scientific and agricultural societies. His An Inquiry into the Symptoms and Causes of the Syncope Anginosa Commonly Called Angina Pectoris (1799) was the first monograph on the pathology of angina pectoris. Parry was a friend of Edward Jenner (1749–1823; DNB), and dedicatee of the latter’s book on vaccination. His celebrity patients included Edmund Burke (1729/30–1797; DNB). He was the father of Charles Henry Parry (1779–1860; DNB), who was a companion of Coleridge on his visit to the Harz Mountains in 1799. Parry and Southey undoubtedly knew each other via mutual friends in Bath. They corresponded in 1798 about a print of Joan of Arc.

Parsons, John (1761–1819). Master of Balliol College, Oxford 1798–1819.

Parsons, William (1745/6–1817) DNB. Musician and composer. He held the post of Master of the King’s Music from 1786 until his death. As Poet Laureate, Southey sent him his New Year’s Odes to set to music. The music composed by Parsons for Southey’s Odes was not performed and has not survived.

Peachy, Emma Frances (née Charter; d. 1809). Wife of Colonel and later Lieutenant-General William Peachy, from a family resident in Bishops Lydeard, Somerset, where she continued to spend winters after her marriage, Southey visiting on at least one occasion. In summer, Peachy was fond of rowing her boat on Derwentwater, near her home on Derwent Isle. Southey wrote an epitaph for her when she died, recalling her gliding across the lake in her skiff. Through Peachy, Southey was introduced to her uncle Sir Charles Malet (1752–1815) and his family.

Peachy, Susannah (dates unknown). The second wife of William Peachy, whom she married in 1812. She was the widow of James Henry of Jamaica.

Peachy, William, Colonel and later Lieutenant-General (c. 1763–1838) Hist P. A Keswick resident, MP for Yarmouth (1797–1802) and Taunton (1826–30). An officer in the Wiltshire militia and a convivial host at his home in Keswick and later on Derwent Isle, Derwentwater. Southey was very fond of Peachy’s wife, Emma Frances Charter, for whom he wrote a poetic epitaph when she died in 1809. His third daughter, Emma (February 1808–May 1809), was named after her. Others in the Peachy circle who visited the Lakes were his sister-in-law Elizabeth Charter and her uncle Sir Charles Malet (1752–1815) and his family, and Peachy’s second wife, a widow, Mrs James Henry.

Peacock (first name and dates unknown). Southey lodged with Peacock and his wife in Newington Butts in 1797. Peacock was involved in the book trade, possibly as a travelling salesman. The Peacocks were unhappily married and later in life Mrs Peacock was central in having her husband committed to a private asylum. On at least two occasions, Peacock wrote to Southey from his ‘place of confinement’ and in 1816 Southey made enquiries about his case.

Peckwell, Robert Henry (later Blosset; 1776–1823). Lawyer. Eldest son of Revd Henry and Bella Peckwell. In 1811, he assumed his mother’s surname. Educated Westminster (adm. 1785) and Christ Church, Oxford (matric. 1792, BA 1796, MA 1799). Admitted to Lincoln’s Inn 1795, called to the Bar 1801) Serjeant-at-Law 1809. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Bengal, 1821) knighted 1822. Author of Cases on Controverted Elections in the Second Parliament of the United Kingdom (1805–1806). He never married. Peckwell was a friend of Southey’s during his time at Westminster School and Oxford.

Peel, Robert, 2nd Baronet (1788–1850) DNB; Hist P. Leading politician in the first half of the nineteenth century. He served as Chief Secretary for Ireland 1812–1818, Home Secretary 1822–1827, 1828–1830 and Prime Minister 1834–1835, 1841–1846. Peel was always a controversial figure, especially when he changed tack and supported Catholic Emancipation in 1829 and the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1845–1846. Both decisions alienated his conservative followers and he split the Tory Party on the latter occasion. Southey had long admired Peel and felt betrayed over his support for Catholic Emancipation; but relations were restored sufficiently for Peel to offer Southey a Baronetcy in 1835 and a further government pension of £300 p.a.

Pegge, Christopher (d. 1822). A fellow of Christ Church, Oxford and from 1790 Lees Reader in Anatomy. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1795 and was knighted in 1799.

Pemberton, Sophia (d. 1830). Daughter of a Birmingham manufacturer, she married Charles Lloyd on 24 April 1799. They moved to Old Brathay, near Ambleside, in 1800. They had nine children and a notably happy family life, despite Charles Lloyd’s bouts of mental instability. Thomas De Quincey claimed that ‘as a wife and mother’ Sophia was ‘unsurpassed’.

Perceval, Spencer (1762–1812) DNB; Hist P. Chancellor of the Exchequer 1807–1812, and Prime Minister 1809–1812. Southey admired Perceval’s opposition to Catholic Emancipation and Perceval was reported to be impressed by Southey’s attacks on Methodism. Perceval’s assassination in 1812 deeply shocked Southey, as it seemed to reveal popular sympathy with Perceval’s killer and to weaken the government’s hostility to Catholic Emancipation.

Pettet, Alfred (1788–1837). Born in Norwich, he was organist at Peter Mancroft church in the city from 1810 until his death. When Southey visited Norwich in 1824 he met Pettet, who successfully solicited a contribution from Southey to Pettet’s Original Sacred Music, the product of his conviction that Britain lacked good sacred music. Published by subscription and dedicated to George IV, the volume contained settings, by Pettet and others, of a number of older and contemporary devotional poems. These included Southey’s ‘Thanksgiving for Victory’, first composed as his New Year’s Ode for 1 January 1816. Other poets included in the volume were James Montgomery, Bernard Barton, Amelia Opie, Caroline Bowles, Joanna Baillie and Henry Hart Milman. The volume was published by 1827 when Pettet wrote to Southey sending copies and expressing the hope that Southey would use his influence to get it reviewed. Southey replied that the Quarterly Review never noticed musical publications.

Philip, Robert (1791–1858). Congregational Minister. He was born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, and entered Hoxton Academy in 1811, becoming Minister at Newington Chapel, Liverpool, in 1815. He moved to London in 1826, when he took up an appointment at Maberly Chapel, Kingsland. He authored a series of religious manuals, including Christian Experience, or, A Guide to the Perplexed (1828), that were popular in Britain and North America. Other publications included pamphlets against the opium trade and biographies of George Whitefield (1714–1770; DNB) and John Bunyan (1628–1688; DNB), all characterised by their strongly evangelical tone. He served on the board of the London Missionary Society. He resigned his post in 1855 and died three years later. Southey and Philip met in 1818. In 1825 Philip sent Southey a parcel of books, including one on South America. Southey’s reply acknowledged that their points of disagreement on religious matters were fewer and less important than those on which they agreed.

Phillimore, Joseph (1775–1855 DNB. Lawyer. Educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford (matric. 1793, BA 1797, BCL 1800, DCL 1804). He won prizes at Christ Church for Latin verse (1793) and prose (1798), and the University English essay prize (1798) for his dissertation, ‘Chivalry’. Southey and Phillimore met at Westminster School, and their friendship lasted until the end of Southey’s time at Oxford. When Southey returned to Oxford in 1820 to receive an honorary DCL, Phillimore, by then Regius Professor of Civil Law, participated in the degree ceremony. Phillimore was not very tall, hence his nickname ‘little Joe’.

Phillips, Richard (1767–1840) DNB. Author and publisher, initially in Leicester and from 1795 in London. In 1796 he founded the progressive Monthly Magazine, employing firstly John Aikin and from 1806 George Gregory as its editor. A radical and republican, Phillips himself wrote anti-government articles for the periodical under the signature ‘Common Sense’. Phillips’s business prospered in the first decade of the nineteenth century. In 1807 he as elected a sheriff of London and in 1808 he was knighted. His fortunes declined in the 1810s and he retired to Brighton in 1823, dying there in 1840. Southey contributed poems and letters to the Monthly Magazine from 1796 and thus had a professional relationship with Phillips. However, he did not have a high opinion of him. In 1812 he cautioned that the publisher was ‘one of the most accomplished rogues in his majestys dominions’. Southey also shared Coleridge’s view of Phillips’s vegetarianism: ‘whatever might be thought of innate Ideas, there could be no doubt to a man who had seen Phillips of the existence of innate Beef.’

Phillpotts, Henry (1778–1869) DNB. Anglican cleric and controversialist. A native of Bridgwater, Somerset, Phillpotts was educated at Gloucester Cathedral School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He occupied a series of increasingly prestigious church appointments in Durham and its environs, and in 1830 became Bishop of Exeter. Phillpotts was an outspoken supporter of the Tories and wrote to Southey in 1819, enclosing some of his political pamphlets. But he was equally controversial on doctrinal matters, denouncing both evangelicals and Tractarians. His refusal to appoint George Cornelius Gorham (1787–1857) to a living in Devon in 1847, because Phillpotts felt Gorham’s views on the sacrament of baptism were opposed to Anglican doctrine, produced a legal dispute that was only resolved by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and led to an important group of Anglicans defecting to the Catholic Church at this lay interference in Church matters.

Ponsonby, Sarah (1755–1832) DNB. One of the ‘Ladies of Llangollen’. A member of an Anglo-Irish family, in 1780 she set up home with Eleanor Butler at Plas Newydd on the outskirts of Llangollen, a major staging post on the route from England to Ireland. Their relationship intrigued their peers and has continued to attract speculation. Although Ponsonby and Butler lived a life of retirement, simplicity and self-improvement, they received many guests – both admirers and tourists. They were visited by Southey in 1811.

Poole, Thomas (1766–1837) DNB. 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.

Pople, William (fl. 1806–1837). Printer, bookseller and stationer, based at various addresses in central London. Before his move to the metropolis, he had been apprenticed to the Bristol printer Nathaniel Biggs. He printed several of Southey’s works, including The History of Brazil (1810–1819). Southey’s nephew, Robert Lovell, was apprenticed to him.

Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749–1814) DNB. Writer and actor. In 1803 he sent Southey a copy of his Gleanings, which contained a poem in praise of Southey’s popular ballad ‘Mary’.

Proby, John Joshua, 1st Earl of Carysfort (1751–1828) DNB; Hist P. Politician and writer. Educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. In the mid-1790s, Carysfort developed an interest in Southey’s poetry, communicating with him through his cousin and Southey’s patron Charles Wynn. Southey arranged for Carysfort to be sent copies of his books, though any letters he wrote to the peer have not survived. Carysfort’s critiques of ‘The Retrospect’ and Madoc are in National Library of Wales, NLW MS 4819. Carysfort’s own Dramatic and Narrative Poems were published in 1810.

Proby, William Allen (1779–1804) Hist P. Naval officer, eldest son of John Joshua Proby, 1st Earl of Carysfort. He was made a captain in 1798 when only 19, probably because of his political connections.

Prosser, George Walter (b. 1796). Major in the infantry from 1826, and author of Past and Present State of Fortifications in Europe (1839). He became Superintendent of Studies at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1842 and was Lieutenant-Governor of that organisation 1854–1857, before joining the 3rd Regiment of Foot. Southey met him when he stayed at Keswick in 1827 and wrote to him that year, thanking him for material for his proposed memoir of James Wolfe (1727–1759; DNB) and exchanging family news.

Pughe, William Owen (1759–1835) DNB. Lexicographer, grammarian, editor, antiquarian and poet. The son of John Owen, he adopted the surname Pughe in 1806 after inheriting property from a relative. A leading member of the Society of Gwyneddigion and the Society of the Cymmrodorion, his publications included: The Heroic Elegies of Llywarch Hen (1792), The Myvyrian Archaiology (1801, 1807) and The Cambrian Biography (1803). In 1796–1797, Southey and Pughe engaged in a (pseudonymous) debate about the Welsh language in the pages of the Monthly Magazine. Later in 1797, Southey consulted Pughe about details for his Welsh-American poem Madoc. Pughe susbsequently became one of the principal disciples of the self-proclaimed prophet Joanna Southcott.

Rees, Owen (1770–1837) DNB. Publisher and bookseller. He was born at Geli-gron, Wales, eldest brother of Thomas Rees, Unitarian minister and writer on theological history. Owen Rees migrated to Bristol where he became a bookseller. He later moved to London and in 1797 was taken into partnership by the publisher Thomas Norton Longman. From 1799 Longman and Rees became Southey’s main publishers. Rees retired from the business in early 1837.

Rees, Thomas (1777–1864) DNB. Unitarian minister and writer on theological history. He was the younger brother of Owen Rees. Southey corresponded with him in 1809 over the Annual Review, which Rees edited for that year.

Reeve, Henry (1780–1814) DNB. Physician. A native of Hadleigh, Suffolk, he became acquainted with Henry Herbert Southey while studying under the Norwich surgeon Philip Meadows Martineau in 1796–1800. He proceeded to Edinburgh University in 1800–1803, a move that probably inspired Henry Herbert Southey’s decision to attend Edinburgh. After a prolonged Continental tour in 1805–1806, he set up practice in Norwich.

Reeve, Susan (1788–1853) DNB. The daughter of the Unitarian hymn-writer, minister and manufacturer John Taylor (1750–1826; DNB) and his wife Susanna (1755–1823; DNB). She married Reeve in 1807. Of their three children, only one survived infancy: Henry Reeve (1813–1895; DNB), later editor of the Edinburgh Review.

Reid, Samuel (c. 1775–1821). A Bristol friend of Southey’s; probably the younger brother of the insurance broker William Reid (b. 1774). Sam Reid had intended to pursue a career as a Unitarian minister, but abandoned it after a crisis of faith. In 1806 he moved to Liverpool, where he worked as a private tutor.

Relfe, Lupton (1798–1845). Publisher, based at 13, Cornhill, London, and son of the musician Lupton Relfe (d. 1805). Relfe started his firm in about 1822 and brought out the early numbers (1823–1827) of the annual Friendship’s Offering. Southey, who contributed poems to the 1826, 1827, 1828 and 1829 issues, corresponded with Relfe in a professional capacity.

Rickman, John (1771–1840) DNB. Statistician. Only son of Thomas Rickman, vicar of Newburn, Northumberland. Educated at Guildford Grammar School (1781–1785) and Oxford (matric. Magdalen Hall, 1788, and migrated to Lincoln College, BA 1792). After graduation he joined his father, who had retired to live in Christchurch, Hampshire. Rickman worked as a private tutor and read widely in economics. He edited the Commercial, Agricultural and Manufacturer’s Magazine (until 1801). In 1796 he wrote a private paper in which he argued for the benefits to the nation of a census. George Rose, MP for Christchurch, showed this to the politician Charles Abbot and in March 1801 the latter steered the census bill into law. Rickman was responsible for the first four censuses (1801, 1811, 1821 and 1831) and paved the way for the fifth (1841). In 1801 he became Abbot’s personal secretary whilst the latter was Chief Secretary for Ireland. On Abbot’s election to the post of Speaker of the House of Commons, Rickman became the Speaker’s Secretary. In 1820 he became Clerk Assistant to the Commons with a salary of £2500 per year. He married Susannah Postlethwaite (d. 1836) in 1805. Rickman’s friendship with Southey began at Burton in 1797 and endured for the rest of their lives. Shortly after their first meeting, Southey described him as ‘rough, coarse, well informed on all subjects, believing nothing, jacobinical’. Later in life Rickman became high Tory, anti-Malthusian and anti-semitic. He regularly provided ideas and information (especially statistics) for Southey’s articles in the Quarterly Review and authored the majority of Southey’s April 1818 Quarterly essay on the Poor Laws. Southey and Rickman planned to collaborate on a sequel to the Colloquies (1829) but this was prevented by John Murray’s (1778–1843) financial problems.

Rickman, Susannah (née Postlethwaite; d. 1836). Married John Rickman in 1805.

Roberts, Barré Charles (1789–1810). Third child and second son of Edward Roberts. A delicate child, he showed a precocious interest in antiquities and amassed a coin collection that was said to be worth 4,000 guineas. He was a student at Christ Church, Oxford, 1805–1808, and contributed to the Gentlemans Magazine and Quarterly Review, especially on numismatics. After his early death, Grosvenor Bedford, who was his cousin, compiled a Memoir (1814), which was, unsurprisingly, favourably reviewed by Southey in the Quarterly Review. Southey also wrote a poem in memory of Roberts.

Roberts, Edward (d. 1835). Chief Clerk of the Pells; father of Barré Charles Roberts. He was related to the Bedfords. Grosvenor Bedford published an edition of Barré Charles’s papers and a memoir in 1814. Southey corresponded with Edward Roberts at this time.

Roberts, William Isaac (1786–1806). A Bristol writer who died aged nineteen. Southey helped promote an edition of his letters and poems in 1811.

Robinson family. London booksellers and publishers. George Robinson (1736–1801; DNB) and his brothers James Robinson (d. 1803/4; DNB), John Robinson (1753–1813; DNB), and possibly Henry Robinson (d. in or after 1813; DNB).

Robinson, Henry Crabb (1777–1867) DNB. 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. The two men remained on friendly terms, visiting each other in Keswick and London, despite an increasing divergence in their political views from 1811–1812 onwards, as Southey became an opponent of constitutional reform.

Rogers, Samuel (1763–1855) DNB. Poet and banker. His writings included The Pleasures of Memory (1792), ‘Columbus’ (1810), ‘Jacqueline’ (1814) and Italy (1822 and 1828). A wealthy, metropolitan Dissenter, Rogers was exceptionally well connected and had many acquaintances in common with Southey. They were on social terms, meeting occasionally and corresponding intermittently. They shared an interest in assisting others, a trait Southey drew on in 1816 when he asked Rogers to help the young poet Herbert Knowles.

Roscoe, William (1753–1831) DNB; Hist P. Lawyer, banker and leading public figure in his native Liverpool, which he represented in parliament 1806–1807. Roscoe was a Unitarian and a radical. He was also an expert on Italian history and literature and collected a notable library and series of Italian paintings, as well as writing The Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici (1796). He corresponded with Southey in 1798 on the whereabouts of William Gilbert.

Ross, William (d. 1873). Worked in the calico printing trade and in the mid-1820s was employed by the Manchester-based firm John Dugdale & Brothers. In 1832 he set up his own firm, Potter & Ross, in Darwen, in partnership with Charles Potter (1802–1872), and later became Vice-President of the Salford Mechanics Institute. In 1840 he gave evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Copyright of Designs. Ross retired in 1847 and was twice Mayor of Salford (1853–1854 and 1854–1855). In 1826 Ross offered Southey an unpublished letter of Kirke White’s for a future edition of the Remains of Henry Kirke White.

Rosser, Robert (d. 1802). Bristol-based printer. Best known for printing the Bristol Mercury.

Rough, William (1772/3–1838) DNB. Lawyer and poet; only son of William Rough. Educated Westminster (adm. 1786, King’s Scholar 1789) and Trinity College, Cambridge (matric. 1792, BA 1796, MA 1799), he entered Gray’s Inn in 1796, and was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1801. He married Harriet (1778–c. 1820), an illegitimate daughter of John Wilkes (1725–1797; DNB). He served in the judiciary in Demerara and Essequibo and later Ceylon and was knighted in 1837. His literary works included Lorenzo di Medici (1797), The Conspiracy of Gowrie (1800), and Lines on the Death of Sir Ralph Abercromby (1800). He was also a contributor to the Gentleman’s Magazine and the Monthly Magazine. Rough and Southey were friends whilst at Westminster School and remained in contact in later life. He was rumoured to have contributed to The Flagellant (1792).

Rouse, Robert (fl. 1820s). Clerk in the East India Company, working in its ‘Private Trade Warehouse’ in Leadenhall Street. Southey corresponded with him in 1826, when Rouse acted as an intermediary for someone offering Southey sight of previously unused letters that shed light on John Wesley (1703–1791; DNB).

Rudge, James Horace (1785–1852). Church of England clergyman, educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and ordained in 1808. He held a number of clerical appointments, including, from 1809, the post of Lecturer at St Anne’s, Limehouse, London, chaplain to various members of the royal family and Rector of Hawkchurch, Devon 1828–1852. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1814. In 1815 he had toured the battlefield of Waterloo and published The Peace-Offering: A Sermon on the Peace in support of the campaign to raise funds for the wounded, and for widows and orphans of the combatants. Southey corresponded with him in 1827 over the former’s proposed memoir of James Wolfe (1727–1759; DNB).

Rumney, John (1796–1861). Surgeon and Deputy Postmaster of Brough, Westmorland 1815–1844. He was an old friend of Tom Southey, from Tom’s days farming in the Brough area, and acted as the midwife at the birth of some of his children. Robert Southey wrote to him in 1822 asking for assistance in sorting out an incorrect invoice.

Rushton, Edward (1756–1814) DNB. Liverpool poet, journalist and anti-slavery campaigner, blinded in 1773 while assisting suffering Africans on board a slave ship. Southey met him in 1808.

Sandford, John (1801–1873) DNB. Anglican clergyman. He held a long series of posts, rising to be Archdeacon of Coventry in 1861, and wrote widely on Church matters and social issues. His first wife, Elizabeth Poole (d. 1853), was the niece of Southey’s old friend from Somerset, Thomas Poole, and was herself a well-known writer on women’s issues, including On Female Improvement (1836).

Messrs Saunders and Otley. Simon Saunders (1783–1861) and John Edward Otley (1798–1857) formed a partnership in 1824 as a London firm of publishers and booksellers, mainly publishing novels. They wrote to Southey in 1827, offering him the editorship of a new journal to challenge the Quarterly Review. Southey eventually declined the offer. The proposed new journal was not launched.

Sawier, Mary (d. before April 1798). The widow of a Bristol accountant and Southey’s landlady in College Street, Bristol in 1795. Her daughter married James Jennings.

Sayers, Frank (1763–1817) DNB. Poet and scholar. Sayers was born in London but after his father died when Sayers was a child, he spent his early years mainly in Suffolk and Norfolk. Sayers inherited a small estate from his grandfather in 1778 and qualified as a doctor in the Netherlands but decided to concentrate on literature from 1789 onwards. He settled in Norwich and became a central figure in the city’s intellectual life – William Taylor was an old schoolfriend. The themes and metres of Sayers’s early work, which began with his Dramatic Sketches of Northern Mythology (1790), influenced Southey’s own work profoundly. Sayers’s later publications were mainly in the fields of archaeology, philology and history. William Taylor published a collected edition of Sayers’s works in 1823, which Southey reviewed admiringly in the Quarterly Review in 1827.

Scott, Margaret Charlotte (née Carpenter; 1770–1826). Walter Scott’s wife.

Scott, Walter (1771–1832) DNB. Poet and novelist. Scott and Southey first met in October 1805, when their mutual interest in chivalric romances brought them together. Scott reviewed Southey’s Amadis of Gaul in the Annual Review, and The Chronicle of the Cid and The Curse of Kehama in the Quarterly Review, while Southey reviewed Scott’s Sir Tristram in the Annual. Privately envious of the enormous sales Scott achieved with his own chivalric poems, Southey was nevertheless a ready correspondent, persuading Scott of Wordsworth’s claims to greatness. For his part Scott, as his fame and influence increased, did not forget Southey: he arranged for Southey to write for the Edinburgh Review in 1807, and when Southey declined, disapproving of its anti-war politics and personal attacks on authors, helped him to a position reviewing for the new journal set up to counter the Edinburgh – the Quarterly. Scott also sought preferment for Southey via his connections in government: Canning was approached to see whether a diplomatic place might be found; Melville was requested to grant the post of Historiographer Royal. Southey also sought Scott’s help as he pursued the sinecure of Steward of the Derwentwater estates (which had passed to the Crown). None of these attempts having succeeded, Scott recommended in 1813 that Southey should be offered the Laureateship, after refusing it himself. Scott had also been influential behind the scenes in securing Southey the invitation from the Ballantynes’ publishing house (in which he was, unbeknownst to Southey, a silent partner) to write the historical section of the Edinburgh Annual Register (1808–1811). Here Scott was disingenuous: Southey was offered a share in the venture and so deferred payments owing to him to take up the offer; Scott, however, did not reveal his own financial involvement in the firm even when, as it faced insolvency in 1813, he promised to help Southey retrieve the monies owed him.

Senhouse, Humphrey (1773–1842), of Netherhall. Senhouse, whose acquaintance Southey made in 1807, was a landed gentleman from a family enriched by the exploitation of coal and iron from their estate along the Cumbrian coast, and by their development of Maryport as a commercial harbour from which these minerals were exported. Senhouse made his excellent library available to Southey; there was much family visiting over the years in both Netherhall and Greta Hall. Senhouse accompanied Southey on his tours in Europe in 1817 and 1838.

Seton, Barbara (dates unknown). The only child of George and Barbara Seton and a cousin of Agnes (1764–1852; DNB) and Mary (1763–1852; DNB) Berry, friends of Horace Walpole (1717–1797; DNB). In 1807, she married the Revd James Bannister, Rector of Iddesleigh. Her date of death is unknown, but she is said to have been living in Honiton, Devon in 1838. Seton met Southey during his second visit to Portugal in 1800–1801, and corresponded with him until 1810. She was on very good terms with both Southey and his wife.

Seward, Anna (1742–1809) DNB. The ‘swan of Lichfield’– a poet, encouraged in youth by Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802; DNB). Her writings included Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional (1760), Elegy on Captain Cook (1780), Monody on Major Andre (1781) and Louisa: A Poetic Novel (1784). Walter Scott edited her Poetical Works for Ballantyne in 1810) her voluminous correspondence was published in 1811. Seward was quick to recognise Southey as a poet to be watched: her 1797 ‘Philippic on a Modern Epic’ condemned the ‘Baneful’ politics of his Joan of Arc, but simultaneously heralded it as the work of ‘sun-born Genius’. She continued to follow Southey’s career with some interest. In 1802 she wrote to the Poetical Register, lauding him as a ‘genuine Poet’, though cautioning the reader against adopting ‘his capricious systems’. She read Madoc shortly after its 1805 publication and published a lengthy defence of it in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1808. When Southey got wind (via a letter sent by Seward to Charles Lloyd) of her high opinion, he wrote to her. This initiated a correspondence that lasted until Seward’s death and that led to their one meeting in Lichfield in summer 1808. Late in life, Southey provided a comic account of the ‘jubilant but appalling solemnity’ of this encounter. However, his attitude to Seward was more ambivalent than this suggests. He was keenly aware of – and attentive to – her place in literary history, noting that she ‘was not so much over-rated at one time, as she has been since unduly depreciated’ (Poetical Works, 10 vols (London, 1837–1838), V, pp. xv–xviii).

Seward, Edmund (c. 1770/71–1795). The youngest son of John Seward of Sapey, Worcestershire. Educated at Balliol College, Oxford (matric. 1789, BA 1793). Seward was one of Southey’s closest friends at Oxford, and an important influence on him. An early enthusiast for Pantisocracy, Seward later withdrew from the scheme and felt himself partly to blame for what he described as ‘having contrived to bring [Southey] ... into ... a calamitous & ruinous ... adventure, from which I might at first perhaps have diverted him’. Southey was deeply shocked by Seward’s death from a ‘fever’, and later addressed his elegy ‘To the Dead Friend’ to him. In a letter to James Montgomery, 6 May 1811, Southey recalled him as ‘an admirable man in all things, whose only fault was that he was too humble ... In his company my religious instincts were strengthened ... Sick of the college-chapel & of the church, we tried the meeting house, — & there we were disgusted too. Seward left College, meaning to take orders; — I who had the same destination, became a Deist after he left me’.

Seward family. A Worcestershire family consisting of four brothers and three sisters. The death of Southey’s close friend Edmund Seward in 1795 was followed by that of his brother John (educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, MB 1795, and physician to the Worcester infirmary) in December 1797. Some time afterwards, the eldest brother, William (a lawyer, based in Ledbury, Herefordshire) shot himself. A fourth brother, whose name Southey does not record, was a ‘mere farmer’ of a ‘methodistical turn’. Of the sisters, one married Mr Severn (a clergyman) and two remained unmarried. In the mid-1790s, Southey was on good terms with most — if not all — of the siblings and corresponded with at least Edmund and one of the Seward sisters.

Sharp, Richard (1759–1835) DNB; Hist P. 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).

Shield, William (c. 1748/9–1829) DNB. Master of the King’s Music 1817–1829. Shield was born near Gateshead and made a name as a violinist in Newcastle, before moving to London, where he became principal violinist at Covent Garden in 1773 and later ‘house composer’ for the theatre. Shield made use of Northumbrian folk tunes, and wrote light operas and music for string quartets and trios. He was also a friend of Joseph Haydn (1732–1809; DNB). Southey had met Shield socially in 1808 and regarded his musical talents with respect, in contrast to his contempt for Shield’s predecessor, Sir William Parsons. This made him more willing to co-operate with Shield over the New Year’s Odes they were required to write and set to music, as Poet Laureate and Master of the King’s Music.

Simpson, Samuel (1802–1881). An inveterate autograph hunter, Simpson wrote to Southey in 1821 and 1826, asking for Southey’s autograph. On both occasions Southey declined, sending Simpson humorous poems instead. Simpson’s identity is hard to be sure of, but he may have been the Samuel Simpson, born in Lancaster in 1802 and son of John Simpson (1779–1846), a retired West India merchant. This Samuel Simpson trained as a lawyer and was a Director of the Liverpool and Leeds District Railway; he was also Honorary Secretary of the Lancaster Scientific, Literary and Natural History Society and a Council member of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire. It is known that he owned some autograph letters from famous people, including one by Horatio Nelson (1758–1805 DNB. On balance, he seems the most likely candidate to be Southey’s correspondent. In 1843 he built Greaves House (now the Greaves Park Hotel, Lancaster) shortly before marrying Ann Atkinson (b. 1819) of Ellel Grange, Lancaster. In 1851 he was ordained and became chaplain of St Thomas Church, Douglas, Isle of Man. Simpson retired from this post in 1867 and later died in Chester, having sold Greaves House.

Shelley, Harriet (née Westbrook; 1795–1816). Shelley’s first wife. They eloped and married in 1811. They had two children, but Shelley left her in 1814. She committed suicide two years later.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe: (1792–1822) DNB. 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.

Smith, Elizabeth (c. 1764–1859). Wife of Thomas Smith and a noted collector of autographs and manuscripts.

Smith, Grace (née Weatherall; 1751/2–1832). Wife of Major-General John Smith (1754–1837) DNB; grandmother of Charlotte-Julia Jephson. She visited the Lakes, including Keswick, in 1812.

Smith, Maria Woodruffe (1795–1854). Younger daughter of Grosvenor Bedford’s friend, Thomas Woodruffe Smith. She visited Keswick in 1826, at the time when her permanent address was in Acre Lane, Clapham. Southey wrote to her afterwards with news of himself and events in Keswick. In 1833 Maria Woodruffe Smith married George Head Head (1795–1876), a Quaker banker and active abolitionist, of Rickerby Hall, Carlisle.

Smith, Thomas (c. 1770–1822). 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.

Smith, Thomas Woodruffe (c. 1747–1811). A wealthy Quaker merchant who lived at Stockwell Park, Surrey, with his second wife, Anne Reynolds (dates unknown) of Carshalton. The Smiths were friends of Grosvenor Charles Bedford and Duppa.

Smith, William (1756–1835) DNB; Hist P. Politician. He was the son of Samuel Smith (1728–1798), a wealthy wholesale grocer and Dissenter. William Smith’s business activities were not successful, but his family’s money subsidized his lengthy political career – he was MP for Sudbury 1784–1790 and 1796–1802, Camelford 1791– 1796 and Norwich 1802–1806, 1807–1830. Smith was a long-standing supporter of parliamentary reform, religious equality and the abolition of the slave trade. He was also an early supporter of the French Revolution, an enthusiastic Whig from the early 1790s and a convert to Unitarianism. These views condemned him to the backbenches and he never held office. He was, though, a regular contributor to debates on a wide range of subjects. Some MPs found his contributions rather too regular, though, and his sententious style did not always command the House of Commons’ respect. When he denounced Southey in a debate on the 14 March 1817 for changing his views on political reform, Southey defended himself with A Letter to William Smith, Esq., M.P. (1817) and Smith decided not to prolong the exchange. His voice continued to be heard regularly in the Commons, though.

Smith, William Hawkes (1786–1840). 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.

Smyth [also Smythe], William (1765–1849) DNB. Historian and poet. Born in Liverpool, he was educated at Eton College and Peterhouse, Cambridge. His appointment as Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge in 1807 was controversial and attributed to patronage by the Holland House set. He wrote poetry – publishing English Lyrics in 1807 – and took an interest in contemporary poets, including Henry Kirke White, whom he knew during the latter’s time at university. Smyth’s verse epitaph to White, which also praised Southey, was inscribed on a memorial to White in All Saints’ Church, Cambridge. Smyth and Southey corresponded about this monument in 1819–1820.

Sotheby, William (1757–1833). Poet and translator. Born into a wealthy family, Sotheby served in the army before devoting himself to literature in 1780. He had many close friends in the literary world, including Joanna Baillie, and unobtrusively helped a number of authors who were in financial trouble. Sotheby’s poetry had little success and he was best known for his translation of Oberon (1798). Southey was first introduced to him in 1802, finding Sotheby ‘a man of taste & much original thought’, though he valued his criticism above his poetry. The two men were on friendly terms and Sotheby even helped Southey with corrections to the manuscript of Madoc (1805) in 1804. Tom Southey, Southey’s brother, served under Sotheby’s brother, Rear-Admiral Thomas Sotheby (1759–1831) – another connection between the two men. Southey saw much less of Sotheby after he settled in Keswick in 1803, but they continued to exchange occasional letters and Sotheby sent Southey presentation copies of some of his works.

Southcott, Joanna (1750–1814) DNB. A Devon maidservant and upholsterer who in 1801 began to publish accounts of the prophetic visions she had been experiencing since 1792. Although the Devon clergy proved uninterested in her experiences, her publication The Strange Effects of Faith; with Remarkable Prophecies (Made in 1792) (1801–2) brought her to the attention of followers of Richard Brothers, including Southey’s acquaintance William Sharp. Transferring their allegiance to Southcott, these Brotherites brought her to London, where they and a number of women converts enabled Southcott to publish her prophecies of a coming millennium in England, in numerous pamphlets – many of them bought and collated by Southey in the course of his work on Letters from England, then the best-researched and most detailed account to have been published. Southcott also embarked on a preaching tour and attracted many thousands of followers, whom she confirmed as adherents by issuing with seals, bearing her symbol and signature and the believer’s. Many of her followers were women, for Southcott empowered the female, suggesting that she herself fulfilled the predictions in Genesis 3, that the woman’s seed shall bruise the serpent’s head, and Revelation 12, that the woman clothed in the sun will precipitate a millennium. Southey’s sceptical distrust of Southcott and her movement came to a head in 1814, when she announced that she, a virgin of sixty-four, was pregnant with Shiloh, the returning saviour. She died, without issue, on 27 December, although William Sharp believed that her body might only be in a trance and be resuscitated and the Shiloh discovered. She left behind her a ‘great box’, made by Sharp, containing sealed prophecies, to be opened by the bishops of the Church of England.

Southey, Bertha (1809–1877). Fifth child of Robert and Edith Southey. She was educated at Greta Hall by her father and her aunts, Sarah Coleridge and Mary Lovell. Bertha was persistently described by Southey as the shyest of his children and spent a year in 1824–1825 and again in 1830–1831 with John Rickman and his family in order to meet a wider social circle. When her mother became ill in the mid-1830s Bertha shared Edith Southey’s care with her sister, Kate. After her mother’s death, she became engaged in late 1838 to her cousin, Herbert Hill, Junior (1810–1892), second son of Herbert and Catherine Hill. The couple married on 12 March 1839 at Crosthwaite Church, Keswick and had seven surviving children. At the time of their marriage, Herbert Hill, Junior was Curate at Rydal in the Lake District. In the bitter family dispute that marred Southey’s later years, Bertha and her husband opposed Caroline Bowles. Hill became Headmaster of King’s School, Warwick 1843–1876, and Bertha spent most of the rest of her life in the Midlands. She died in Leamington and there is a memorial to her and her husband in St Mary’s Collegiate Church, Warwick.

Southey, Charles Cuthbert (1819–1888). The last, unexpected, child of Robert and Edith Southey, and their only surviving son, he was always known as ‘Cuthbert’ to his family. He was born on 24 February 1819 and was indulged by his parents and older sisters. He was mainly educated at home. In 1836–1837 he accompanied his father on a lengthy trip to the West Country, and, in 1838, was one of the party on Southey’s final foreign journey, to France. Southey raised the money to send him to Queen’s College, Oxford (1837–1841), but Cuthbert did not display the precocious intellectual talent of his elder brother, Herbert. Cuthbert entered the Church and pursued a solid, if unspectacular, career, including terms as Vicar of Ardleigh 1851–1855, Kingsbury Episcopi 1855–1879, St James’s, Dudley 1879–1885 and Askham 1885–1888. He was married three times: to Christina Maclachlan (1819–1851) in 1842) to Henrietta Nunn (b. 1824) in 1853) and to Justina Davies (b. 1841) in 1871. Cuthbert was deeply opposed to Southey’s marriage to Caroline Bowles and edited one of the rival posthumous versions of Southey’s letters, Life and Correspondence (1849–1850). Cuthbert was embarrassed by many of his father’s views, including his religious unorthodoxy, enthusiasm for wine and virulent condemnation of some public figures. All of these aspects of Southey’s life were suppressed or explained away in Cuthbert’s edition.

Southey, Edith. See Fricker, Edith (1774–1837)

Southey, Edith May (1804–1871). Southey’s oldest surviving child. She was a close friend of both her cousin, Sara Coleridge (1802–1852) and of Dora Wordsworth (1804–1847), who were of a similar age. Edith May was educated at Greta Hall by her father and aunts, Sarah Coleridge and Mary Lovell. She was a talented linguist – she learned Danish, for instance, alongside Southey - but was also practically-minded and as a young adult took an important role in organising the household and social events at Greta Hall. In 1823–1825 she spent nearly two years away from Keswick being introduced to London’s social life, a process she seems to have thoroughly enjoyed. During her time in London she also received tuition (paid for by Southey) from a professional artist. Despite constant hints from Southey about potential suitors, she did not become engaged until 1830, when the clergyman, John Wood Warter (1806–1878), an acquaintance of her cousin, Edward Hill, visited Keswick. Warter was chaplain at the British Embassy in Copenhagen 1830–1833 and the two did not marry until 15 January 1834 at Crosthwaite Church, Keswick. Edith May moved to Tarring in West Sussex, where Warter had just been appointed Vicar, and spent the rest of her life there. The couple had four surviving children. In the bitter family dispute that marred Southey’s later years, Edith May and Warter sided with Caroline Bowles. In 1824 Southey had advised his daughter to start keeping a commonplace book and this was later extended and published by Warter as Wise Saws and Modern Instances (1861).

Southey, Edward (1788–1847). Southey’s youngest brother, he spent much of his childhood in the household of Elizabeth Tyler. Southey was much preoccupied with arranging Edward’s education, though plans to send him to St Paul’s School did not work out. It is not certain where he was educated. Southey despaired, noting ‘I never saw a lad with a better capacity or with habits more compleatly bad’. Edward was to lead an increasingly rackety, disreputable life, trying his hand at being a sailor, soldier and, eventually, a provincial actor.

Southey, Eliza (1776–1779). Southey’s younger sister.

Southey, Emma (1808–1809). Southey’s third daughter.

Southey, Henry Herbert (1784–1865) DNB. Physician. Southey’s younger brother. With the help of his uncle Herbert Hill, Southey provided money for Henry Herbert’s education at Norwich and Edinburgh. His concerns about his younger brother’s lack of application proved — eventually — to be ill-founded, and in later life the two enjoyed a close friendship. Henry graduated MD on 24 June 1806, producing, with Southey’s help, a dissertation on the origins and course of syphilis which suggested an American origin for the disease. Southey also helped Henry’s finances by procuring him reviewing work in the Annual Review. Henry travelled to Portugal in 1807, returning before its conquest by France at end of the year. He married Mary Sealy (1784–1811), the daughter of a wealthy Lisbon merchant, in 1809. In 1815 he married for a second time, his bride being Louisa Gonne. In his later years Henry became a successful London doctor, with premises in Harley Street and an appointment as physician in ordinary to King George IV.

Southey, Herbert (1806–1816). Southey’s first son, a boy of great intellectual promise.

Southey, Isabel (1812–1826). Southey’s youngest daughter.

Southey, John Cannon (1743–1806). The eldest brother of Southey’s father, who lived at Taunton, Somerset. His work as a lawyer led to him accumulating a substantial fortune of £100,000. Although he was unmarried, he refused to help either Robert Southey Senior, thus ensuring the latter’s imprisonment for debt in 1792, or his nephews, to whom he left nothing in his Will. Southey visited his uncle in 1802, describing his miserly existence to John May. In 1806, he recorded that his uncle ‘had thanked God upon his death bed that he had cut me off’. Southey retaliated by writing a poem attacking the deceased.

Southey, Katharine (‘Kate’) (1810–1864). 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.

Southey, Louisa (née Gonne; d. 1830). Daughter of Southey’s old Lisbon friends, the Gonnes, and second wife of Henry Herbert Southey. They married on 21 August 1815. Louisa died giving birth to their tenth child.

Southey, Margaret (1752–1802). Southey’s mother. Born Margaret Hill, she married Robert Southey Senior in 1772. The marriage produced nine children, of whom five died young. She was dominated by her older half-sister, Elizabeth Tyler, with whom Southey spent a great deal of his childhood. After the bankruptcy and death of her husband in 1792, Margaret moved to Bath, running a boarding house in Westgate Buildings. Her continued financial difficulties — possibly exacerbated by the extravagance of her half-sister — caused Southey great anxiety. Margaret died on 5 January 1802 after a long illness.

Southey, Margaret (b. 1811). Eldest child of Tom Southey and his wife Sarah. Born 7 March 1811.

Southey, Margaret Edith (1802–1803). The first-born child of Robert and Edith Southey, who both doted on her. She died of hydrocephalus in August 1803.

Southey, Mary (1750–1838). Southey’s paternal aunt, also referred to as ‘Aunt Maria’. Whereas Southey was on poor terms with his surviving paternal uncles, John and Thomas, he was on excellent terms with their sister. Mary Southey lived in Taunton, Somerset. After 1803 she provided important links between her nephew and his regional roots, and Southey stayed with her on his visits to the West Country. Mary, like her nephews, suffered from her two brothers’ lack of familial feeling. She was not included in either of their wills, but did eventually manage to obtain some property from the estate of Thomas.

Southey, Mary Hannah (b. 1812). Tom Southey’s second child. Born 12 November 1812.

Southey, Mary-Harriet (1784–1811). Daughter of Southey’s old Lisbon acquaintance, Richard Sealy (c. 1752–1821). She married Henry Herbert Southey in 1809.

Southey, Robert, Senior (1745–1792). Southey’s father. A failed Bristol linen-draper, he was briefly imprisoned in 1792 ‘for a bill endorsed for a deceitful friend’. His release was secured by Elizabeth Tyler. He died in December 1792, after what his eldest son described as a ‘long’ decline.

Southey, Robert Castle (1813–1828). Son of Tom and Sarah; born 14 December 1813, died 20 July 1828.

Southey, Sarah (née Castle; 1782–1849). The daughter of a lawyer from Durham. She married Tom Southey in June 1810. Their nine surviving children were born between 1811–1824.

Southey, Thomas (‘Tom’) [brother] (1777–1838). Sailor and farmer. Southey’s younger brother and the one to whom he was in the 1790s closest. Tom entered the navy as a midshipman at the age of 12, saw action in several major battles of the French revolutionary wars (including Cape St Vincent and Copenhagen), was captured on one occasion, wounded on several others, and was made a lieutenant as reward for his bravery in the fight between Mars and L’Hercule on 21 April 1798. He was sent to the West Indies station in early 1804, court martialled for insubordination there, but was given a post under a different captain. He was made captain himself in 1811, but never commanded a ship. After he retired from the navy, he tried his hand at farming and as a customs officer. His last posting was at Demerara, British Guiana, and he died on shipboard on the return voyage to England. He married Sarah Castle in 1810 and produced a large family. Tom’s lack of financial stability meant that some of the burden of supporting him fell on his brothers Robert and Henry Herbert Southey. Tom’s knowledge of the navy and seafaring, and his observations of foreign climes, provided important information for many of Southey’s writings, including his poetry and The Life of Nelson (1813). Tom’s only publication was A Chronological History of the West Indies (1827), written with his brother Robert’s encouragement.

Southey, Thomas [uncle] (1748–1811). Younger brother and at one time the business partner of Southey’s father, Robert Southey Senior. He was the beneficiary of the will of John Southey, to Southey’s envy and dismay, thus becoming a rich man. He spent his later years in Taunton, Somerset. Although unmarried, childless, and wealthy Thomas Southey was on distant terms with his brother Robert’s sons. Thomas Southey’s Will held no surprises — it cut his nephews off without a penny, ‘his last boast being ... that no one of his own name should ever be a shilling the better for him’.

Spafford, Horatio Gates (1778–1832). American Quaker, inventor and writer. He sent Southey a copy of his Gazetteer of the State of New York (1813), and the two corresponded in 1817 about Spafford’s novel, The Mother-in-Law (1817), which was set in the Lake District.

Spedding, John (1770–1851). Of Mirehouse, near Keswick. A boyhood friend of Wordsworth who became a close friend of the Southey family.

Standert, Hugh Chudleigh (1782–1850). Surgeon at Taunton with literary inclinations, and a friend of James Montgomery. Standert was known to Southey through the latter’s extensive family connections in Taunton and the two men occasionally corresponded.

Stanger, James (1743–1829). Member of a long-established Cumberland family, he had made a fortune in London as a partner in a firm of wholesale linen drapers and warehousemen, and bought an estate at Crosthwaite in 1810, where he built a new house called Dove Cote. He was on good terms with Southey and his family.

Strachey, George (1776–1849). Officer of the East India Company. Son of John Strachey. Educated at Westminster (adm. 1787) and Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1795 MA 1822). Writer EICS (Madras) 1796) Assistant in the Military, Secret and Political Department, 1798) Joint Assay Master, 1807) Private Secretary to the Governor, 1808) Judge and Magistrate of the Zillah of Cuddapah, 1809) Junior Secretary to Government, 1812) Chief Secretary, 1813) retired 1824. Strachey was Southey’s ‘substance’ (an older boy assigned to induct a new pupil into school rules and rituals) at Westminster School. During their schooldays, Strachey (perhaps in response to the scandal surrounding The Flagellant was one of many acquaintances who treated Southey ‘like a scabby sheep’, dropping him. They were later only partially reconciled, but enough for Southey to commemorate Strachey’s departure for India in 1798 with a sonnet (‘Fair be thy fortunes in the distant land’) published in the Morning Post. Southey attempted to maintain their correspondence, but it had lapsed by April 1805 when he confessed that as Strachey had not replied to his letters, he would ‘not ... write to him again, nor in any way force myself upon him.’

Stuart, Daniel (1766–1846) DNB. Newspaper proprietor and journalist. Originally a printer, he bought the Morning Post in 1795 and turned it into the leading anti-government newspaper and a very profitable venture. Though he sold the Morning Post in 1803, he retained an interest in the Courier, which he acquired in 1800–1801, though it is disputed how much influence he had over the newspaper’s contents. Stuart employed Southey to write poems for the Morning Post at a guinea a week in 1798–1799, and again in 1801–1803. This ‘laureateship’ was crucial to Southey’s finances. He invited Southey to contribute to the Courier in November 1807 and in that same month included excerpts from Letters from England in the paper (on 17th and 20th). Southey continued to order the Courier as his daily paper and occasionally published poems there, including a sonnet praising Lord Percy for his involvement in the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and a controversial ode (‘Who counsels peace’) attacking British policy towards Bonaparte in 1814.

Sunderlin, Lady, Philippa Elizabeth Dorothy Malone (née Rooper; 1745–1831). Daughter of Godolphin Rooper (1709–1790) of Berkampstead, she married Lord Sunderlin in 1778. The couple had no children.

Sunderlin, Lord, Richard Malone (1738–1816) DNB. Elder brother of the Shakespeare critic, Edmond Malone (1741–1812; DNB). Sunderlin was an Irish politician, barrister and landowner, who received his title in 1785. Southey got to know Sunderlin and his family well when they visited the Lakes in 1812–1813.

Swan, Charles (b. 1797–?1838). Writer and clergyman, whose works included Gesta Romanorum; or Entertaining Moral Stories (1824). From Morton, near Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, he attended Catherine Hall, Cambridge, matriculating in 1817. He was ordained as a deacon in 1820 and, in 1824, took up the post of Chaplain on HMS Cambrian. He published an account of his experiences as Journal of a Voyage Up the Mediterranean, Principally Among the Islands of the Archipelago and In Asia Minor, Including Many Interesting Particulars Relative to the Greek Revolution. With an Essay on the Fanariotes (1826). In 1823 he sent Southey a copy of his Sermons on Several Subjects; with Notes, Critical, Historical and Explanatory, published earlier that year. Southey thanked him for the gift.

Tate, James (1771–1843) DNB. Schoolmaster, clergyman, and classicist. Educated at the Grammar School in Richmond, Yorkshire, and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. In 1796 he became headmaster of Richmond School and transformed it into an educational powerhouse. He rejected corporal punishment and instead attempted to enthuse pupils with his own love of learning. He published textbooks on the classics and also Horatius Restitutus (1832), which attempted to arrange the works of Horace in chronological order. Politically he was a Whig and a proponent of Catholic Emancipation. Southey corresponded with Tate in 1816 about the latter’s pupil, Herbert Knowles.

Tayler, Charles Benjamin (1797–1875). Clergyman and writer for the young. Southey wrote to him in 1820 in connection with some poems Tayler had sent him.

Taylor, George (1772–1851). Gentleman farmer, classicist and occasional contributor to the Quarterly Review. Taylor lived in County Durham and became acquainted with Southey through the latter’s brother, Tom. His son, Henry Taylor, later became a close friend of Southey’s and his literary executor.

Taylor, Henry (1800–1886) DNB. Poet and civil servant. The son of the gentleman farmer and classicist George Taylor. Southey became acquainted with the Taylors in the early 1810s via his brother Tom, who lived near them in County Durham. Taylor joined the Colonial Office in 1824, eventually rising to be senior clerk for the Carribean colonies. He married Theodosia (1818–1891), daughter of the politican Thomas Spring Rice in 1839. Taylor was a successful civil servant, knighted for his service to the Colonial Office in 1869. He managed to combine his job with a literary career. His greatest success was the drama Philip Van Artevelde (1834), which contained a preface critiquing Byron and Shelley. Taylor and Southey were on excellent terms, and the latter encouraged the former’s literary ambitions, writing a favourable review of his Isaac Comnenus (1827). They toured Holland, France and Belgium in 1825 and 1826 and in the 1830s Southey appointed Taylor as his literary executor and official biographer. The family feud that erupted after Southey’s marriage to Caroline Bowles and that escalated after his death, made Taylor’s role impossible and he resigned from the task. Taylor’s Autobiography (1885) includes material on his friendship with Southey.

Taylor, John (1781–1864). Publisher and writer. Born in Retford, Nottinghamshire, he was the son of the bookseller James Taylor (1752–1823) and his wife Sarah (b. 1760). Educated at Lincoln and Retford grammar schools, he moved to London in 1803, where he worked in the publishing and bookselling trade. In 1806 he set up his own business with James Augustus Hessey (1785–1870). The firm’s staple fare was sermons, moral tracts and homilies. They also published contemporary poets, including John Clare (1793–1864: DNB and John Keats (1795–1821; DNB), though Taylor’s extensive and frequently unauthorised copyediting was a subject of controversy then and since. From 1821–1825 he was co-owner of the London Magazine, whose contributors included Thomas De Quincey, Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt. His business partnership with Hessey ended in 1825, and in 1827 Taylor became bookseller and publisher to the new University of London. He retired from business in 1853. Taylor was himself a prolific writer, publishing on religious, scientific, antiquarian, economic, geographical and philological subjects, amongst others. Taylor and Southey corresponded in 1823 over Walter Savage Landor’s Imaginary Conversations (1824), which Taylor was publishing and Southey was helping to censor to remove its more libellous material.

Taylor, William (1765–1836) DNB. Reviewer and translator. Born in Norwich, the only child of William and Sarah Taylor. Taylor’s interest in German culture culminated in his Historic Survey of German Poetry (1828–1830). He was also a prolific contributor to the Annual Review, The Athenaeum, Monthly Magazine, and Monthly Review. Southey and Taylor met in 1798, whilst the former was on a visit to Great Yarmouth, where his brother Henry Herbert Southey was being tutored by George Burnett. Taylor introduced Southey to his great friend Frank Sayers (1763–1817; DNB) – whose 1792 collection Poems had influenced Southey’s early work – and also to radical and dissenting circles in Norwich. Taylor gave Southey the idea for the Annual Anthology and was an acute, if frequently blunt, critic of his work. From 1803–1804, he edited the Norwich newspaper The Iris, to which Southey contributed poetry. Southey described Taylor as ‘one of the three great men of my acquaintance ... the more I know him and the longer I know him, the more do I admire his knowledge and love his moral character.’

Telford, Thomas (1757–1834) DNB. Civil engineer and architect. The son of a shepherd from Eskdale, Dumfriesshire, he was apprenticed to a stonemason at the age of fourteen and taught himself how to design and manage building projects. Telford made his name as Surveyor of Public Works in Shropshire, where he built the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct over the River Dee (1805). His largest project, which he co-ordinated from 1803 onwards, was a plan to improve communications in the Highlands of Scotland, including the Caledonian Canal, 920 miles of new roads, over 1,000 new bridges and many harbour improvements. He also designed the Menai Suspension Bridge (1819–1826). Southey inspected the Caledonian Canal and other Highland improvements with Telford and Rickman in 1819 and greatly admired Telford’s work – he wrote three ‘Inscriptions’ for the Caledonian Canal and praised Telford in his New Year’s Ode for 1823. Telford left Southey a legacy in his Will and asked him to write his biography. Southey did not fulfill this commission, possibly because of his own failing health.

Thelwall, John (1764–1834) DNB. Political radical, poet and erstwhile friend of Coleridge. Arrested on a charge of treason in 1794, Thelwall became first a farmer at Llyswen, Wales, then a speech therapist, journalist and itinerant lecturer on elocution. He remained a Radical but faded from the forefront of the political scene after the 1790s. Though they came to disagree on politics, Southey retained a good deal of affection for Thelwall.

Thomas, Dr (first name and dates unknown). A native of Hereford, father of William Bowyer Thomas. He was involved in the management of Herbert Hill’s business affairs.

Thomas, William Bowyer (d. 1802). A native of Hereford, Thomas was the business agent for Herbert Hill, Southey’s uncle. His job also involved him in the tangled finances of Elizabeth Tyler, Hill’s half-sister and Southey’s aunt. Thomas met Southey during the latter’s 1795–1796 visit to Portugal. Southey stayed with him in Hereford in 1798 and through Thomas gained access to the cathedral library. In 1800 Thomas married a cousin, a woman Southey greatly admired. Thomas died suddenly in 1802.

Thompson, Thomas (1776–1861). Pharmaceutical and manufacturing chemist at Liverpool. He was a leading Quaker and corresponded with Southey in 1820–1821 about the latter’s proposed (but unrealised) life of George Fox (1624–1691: DNB, the founder of Quakerism.

Thorp, William (1727–1800). Well-known hosier in Oxford, with a shop in Broad Street; Mayor of Oxford, 1775–6 and 1789–90. Thorp and his son and namesake, William Thorp (1762–1835), Vicar of Sandfield, 1807–35, were friends of Southey’s during his time at Oxford.

Ticknor, George (1791–1871). Writer, first Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard, and co-founder of the Boston Public Library. Born in Boston, he was educated at Dartmouth College and later studied for the Massachusetts Bar. Finding the law uncongenial, he decided to pursue his studies and visited Europe from 1815 to 1819, for some of this time accompanied by his friend Edward Everett. The two enrolled at the University of Göttingen; while there Ticknor was offered a newly created chair in French and Spanish at Harvard. He prepared for his new role by spending time in France and Spain, and returned to Boston to assume his duties in 1819. He resigned from Harvard in 1835 and travelled again in Europe from 1835 to 1838. Ticknor and Southey met in Paris in 1817. They had shared interests in Spanish literature, culture and history and in collecting books and manuscripts. Ticknor amassed an extraordinary library, some of which informed his three-volume History of Spanish Literature (1849). Ticknor visited Keswick in 1819, and spent time with Southey. Their correspondence lasted for the rest of the latter’s life. Southey, who described Ticknor as ‘one of the best informed men I ever became acquainted with’, promised him the manuscript of his New England poem ‘Oliver Newman’, a promise carried out after Southey’s death.

Tighe, Richard William (1744–1828). A member of the Tighe family of Rossanna, County Wicklow, and uncle of the poet Mary Tighe (1772–1810; DNB). He was the author of Psalms and Hymns (1789) and of other sermons and religious tracts. In 1821 he sent Southey a copy of his biography of the devotional writer and non-juror William Law (1686–1761; DNB).

Tillbrook, Samuel (1784–1835). Anglican clergyman, Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, 1810–1828, and later Rector of Freckenham, Suffolk, 1829–1835. Tillbrook was on good terms with Wordsworth, near whose home at Rydal he purchased a cottage, the ‘Ivy Cot’. Southey corresponded with him over a number of charitable projects, including plans to help James Dusautoy and Robert Bloomfield. Tillbrook also published an extended critique of Southey’s use of hexameters in A Vision of Judgement (1821).

Tobin, James Webbe (1767–1814) DNB. Abolitionist son of a Nevis sugar planter, Tobin became friends with Coleridge and Wordsworth, whom he may have visited in 1797 in Somerset. In Bristol he befriended Humphry Davy and participated in the nitrous oxide experiments at Thomas Beddoes’s Pneumatic Institution. A prospective Pantisocrat, Tobin later contributed five poems to the second volume of Southey’s Annual Anthology and urged Southey to produce a third. A political radical and, in the mid-1790s, a follower of William Godwin, Tobin began to lose his eyesight when in America and Nevis in 1793–94. In 1804 Tobin was bereaved of his brother and companion John (1770–1804), and fell out with Coleridge, who resented his advice on money and health matters. In September 1807 he married Jane Mallet (d. 1837), and from 1809 till his death lived on Nevis, campaigning against cruelty to slaves.

Townshend [originally ‘Townsend’], Chauncy [also Chauncey] Hare (1798–1868) DNB. Poet and collector. Educated at Eton and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he won the Chancellor’s English medal in 1817 for a poem, ‘Jerusalem’. He was ordained but never took up a living. Determined on a poetic career, he wrote to Southey for advice. The latter encouraged his ambitions; Townshend visited Greta Hall and dedicated his Poems (1821) to the Poet Laureate. Several further volumes followed, including The Weaver’s Boy (a revised edition of the 1821 collection), The Reigning Vice: A Satirical Essay in Four Books (1827), Sermons in Sonnets (1851) and The Burning of the Amazon (1852). Townshend also wrote for periodicals, contributing to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Household Words, and All the Year Round. His work for the latter two was a result of his friendship with Charles Dickens (1812–1870; DNB), with whom he shared an interest in mesmerism. Dickens dedicated Great Expectations to Townshend; the latter made Dickens his literary executor. On his death, Townshend, an avid collector, bequeathed his collections to the South Kensington Museum and the Wisbech and Fenland Museum, and his library to the latter. The bulk of his estate was used to endow a charity school offering free evening education to some 400 children over the age of thirteen.

Messrs Treuttel and Wurtz. French firm of publishers and booksellers, founded by John-Georges Treuttel (1744–1826) and John-Godefroy Wurtz (1768–1841) in Strasbourg; they opened a branch in Paris in 1795 and a London branch was set up in 1817 under the management of Adolphus Richter (d. 1857), based at 30 Soho Square. They specialised in importing books from continental Europe. From 1827 they published a new journal, the Foreign Quarterly Review; Southey contributed to the first issue. The journal was relatively successful, selling 1,500 copies of the first two issues, and Treuttel and Wurtz continued to publish it until 1833) in 1846 it was merged with the Westminster Review.

Tuffin, John Furnall (d. 1820). Wealthy vintner of Great Queen Street, London, an acquaintance of John Horne Tooke, Joseph Watt, William Godwin, and the Wordsworths. His fame as a conversationalist led to him gaining the nickname ‘River’. Southey’s correspondence with him does not appear to have survived.

Turner, Dawson (1775–1858) DNB. Banker, botanist and antiquary. He was born and spent most of his adult life in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Educated in Norfolk and at Pembroke College, Cambridge, Turner married Mary Palgrave (1774–1850) in 1796, the same year he joined the family bank, Gurney and Turner. He used his wealth and leisure time to pursue interests in botany, antiquities, painting and collecting art, books and manuscripts, accumulating over 8,000 volumes. He published on a number of subjects, including botany, travel, architecture and antiquities. His wife and daughters, whose artistic skills had been honed by the tutelage of John Crome (1768–1821; DNB) and John Sell Cotman (1782–1842; DNB), often supplied illustrations for his works. After the death of his wife in 1850, Turner made a second marriage to Rosamund Matilda Duff (1810–1863) that caused a rift with his family and friends. Turner and his new wife moved to London. He sold part of his collection of books and paintings, and died in the capital in 1858. Turner wrote to Southey in 1816, enclosing an etching of the Laureate produced by his wife, Mary, and condoling with him on the death of Herbert Southey. (The Turners had themselves lost three of their eleven children in infancy.) Thereafter, the two maintained an intermittent correspondence.

Turner, Sharon (1768–1847) DNB. Lawyer and historian who lived at Red Lion square near the British Museum and used the manuscripts thus accessible to him to compile a History of the Anglo-Saxons, 4 vols (1799–1805), on which Southey drew in Madoc (1805). A long term friend and correspondent of Southey, in 1817 Turner gave him legal advice over the Wat Tyler piracy.

Tyler, Elizabeth (1739–1821). The older, unmarried half-sister of Southey’s mother. She had spent her early life looking after an elderly relative and on his death received an inheritance which she then spent on living the high life. Her extravagance was a source of great concern to her relatives, in particular her half-brother Herbert Hill. Elizabeth Tyler was painted by Joshua Reynolds and moved in cultural circles in Bath and Bristol, counting amongst her friends the Palmers, owners of the Theatre Royal, Bath. Southey was largely brought up in her household, an experience he later described in a series of autobiographical letters to John May. Southey quarrelled with his aunt over his relationship with Edith Fricker and involvement in Pantisocracy, and on a wet night in 1794 she threw him out. They never saw or spoke to one another again. Southey later speculated that Elizabeth Tyler, whose grandmother had died ‘in confinement’, suffered from a form of insanity, noting that ‘her habitual violence of temper is now increased by long indulgence absolutely to a state of derangement’.

Vardon, Elizabeth Bryan, née Tarbutt (1780–1859). Daughter of the London merchant George Tarbutt. In 1797 she married Thomas Vardon. They had six children, including Thomas Vardon (1799–1867; DNB), Librarian of the House of Commons. Her sister, Caroline Forsyth Tarbutt, married Southey’s old Oxford friend George Maule (d. 1851) in 1810.

Vardon, Thomas (c. 1758–1836). Iron merchant and manufacturer in Greenwich, where he was a partner in the Crowley works and an important supplier to the Royal Navy. Vardon met Southey on his tour of the Netherlands in 1815. They had a mutual friend in John William Knox (1784–1862) and Vardon also knew the family of the wife of Southey’s old Westminster friend, Charles Collins.

Vincent, William (1739–1815) DNB. Head Master of Westminster School 1778–1802 and later Dean of Westminster. A Tory, in 1792 he used a public sermon at St Margaret’s, Westminster, to defend the constitution and the prevailing social order. He published works on the geography and commerce of the classical world.

Wakefield, Gilbert (1756–1801) DNB. Radical writer. Born in Nottingham, the son of George Wakefield, Rector of St Nicholas’s Church. He attended Jesus College, Cambridge, graduating with a BA in 1776. Wakefield was a Fellow of the College 1776–1779 and a deacon 1778–1779. But he resigned the former post on his marriage and the latter on his conversion to Unitarianism. Thereafter he was a teacher (at Warrington Dissenting Academy 1779–1783) and a professional writer, mainly on classical, religious and political topics. He was one of the Pitt government’s fiercest critics and was imprisoned for two years in Dorchester gaol for his A Reply to Some Parts of the Bishop of Landaff’s Address (1798). Southey visited him in prison.

Walker, William Sidney (1795–1846). Literary scholar. Born at Pembroke, he was educated at Eton and the University of Cambridge, where he won the Craven Scholarship (1817) and Porson prize for Greek verse (1818). He was elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1820. Religious doubts made it impossible for him to proceed to ordination and led to the resignation of his Fellowship in 1829. From then until the end of his life, Walker lived off annuities from Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839; DNB), an old friend, and from Trinity, his old college. He moved to London in 1831. Mental health problems, which made social interaction difficult, had a major impact on his later years. However, he remained capable of occasional literary work. Walker had become a close friend of Derwent Coleridge’s during the latter’s time as an undergraduate in Cambridge. It was possibly through this connection that in December 1823, Walker wrote to Southey requesting biographical information about William Gilbert. Southey obliged, but emphasised the importance of not disclosing to the public information that would distress Gilbert’s surviving close relations.

Walwein de Tervliet, Joseph Antoine (dates unknown). Librarian of the Public Library in Ghent, 1810–1818. Southey corresponded with him in 1815 as part of his book-buying activities during his tour of Belgium.

Ware, John (1754–1820). Founding owner, printer and editor of the Cumberland Pacquet and Ware’s Whitehaven Advertiser 1774–1820. Southey sent the newspaper a letter in 1819 in protest at Henry Brougham’s campaign against the government’s support of the Manchester magistrates over their actions in the ‘Peterloo Massacre’ of 1819.

Waring, Elijah (c. 1788–1857). Writer. Born in Alton, Hampshire, he was the son of Jeremiah Waring. He moved to Wales in c. 1810, living in Swansea and then Neath. He established the short-lived English-language periodical The Cambrian Visitor: A Monthly Miscellany in 1813. In 1817 he married Deborah (c. 1786–1867), sister of the prominent Quaker ironmaster and philanthropist Joseph Tregelles Price (1784–1854; DNB). Waring himself later abandoned Quakerism and joined the Wesleyan Methodists. He was a keen advocate for liberty in church and state and campaigned for parliamentary reform. He befriended Edward Williams (pseud. Iolo Morganwg) (1747–1826; DNB) and, after the latter’s death, published recollections of him in the Cambrian. His Recollections and Anecdotes of Edward Williams, the Bard of Glamorgan, appeared in 1850. In 1827 he sought information from Southey for his accounts of Edward Williams.

Watson, Richard (1737–1816) DNB, Bishop of Llandaff. In the 1790s a critic of the French revolution and its British supporters and an opponent of Gilbert Wakefield. Southey came to know Watson after his move to the Lakes, visiting him at his Calgarth estate in Troutbeck Bridge, Windermere, where he had lived since 1788.

Watts, Alaric Alexander (1797–1864). Journalist and poet. Born in London, he was the youngest son of John Mosley Watts and his wife Sarah. His parents separated when he was very young and a lengthy suit in Chancery followed. He was educated at Wye College Grammar School, Kent, and then at a school in Ashford. After that he held a variety of posts, including usher, private tutor, clerk and assistant teacher. By the late 1810s he was determined on a literary career and from January to June 1819 edited the New Monthly Magazine. He married Priscilla (Zillah) Maden Wiffen (1799–1873) in 1821. Her Quaker family disowned her after the marriage. In the early 1820s he contributed to the Literary Gazette and the Gentleman’s Magazine and published Poetical Sketches (1822). He was editor of the Leeds Intelligencer (1822–1825) and the Manchester Courier (1825–6). A Tory, Watts claimed that between 1827–1847 he was involved in the setting up of over twenty conservative periodicals. These included the London evening paper, The Standard, in 1827. Watts played a key role in the emergent market for annuals. He was the editor, and latter proprietor, of the influential annuals the Literary Souvenir (1824–1835) and the Cabinet of Modern Art (1836–1837). He owned the Literary Magnet from 1825–1828 and published a collection of contemporary verse, Fugitive Poetry (1828–1829). In the 1840s he encountered serious financial difficulties and was made bankrupt in 1849. His situation was eased by the award of a civil list pension of £100 p.a. in 1854 for his services to literature and art. He edited the biographical compendium Men of the Time in 1857 and spent his later years re-reading and annotating the poetry of Chaucer, Spenser, Milton and Dryden. Watts and Southey had shared Tory sympathies and literary interests. They corresponded intermittently from 1824. Southey also contributed to theLiterary Souvenir in 1826 and 1827.

Webb, William (c. 1771–1845). Deputy Commissary-General in the British Army. Webb had written to Southey in 1817 to defend the quality of the horses sent out to Portugal in 1808 to pull the British Army’s artillery and Southey had included Webb’s defence in a note at History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (London, 1823–1832), I, pp. 554–555. The poor quality of the artillery horses was one of the reasons given for British forces not advancing after their victory in the Battle of Vimeiro (1808). In 1824 he solicited Southey’s advice on finding a publisher. The work he was trying to place was probably Minutes of Remarks on Subjects Picturesque, Moral, and Miscellaneous, Made in a Course Along the Rhine, and During a Residence in Swisserland and Italy, in the Years 1822 and 1823, which appeared in 1827.

Wedgwood, Thomas (1771–1805) DNB. Chemist. Third son of the potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795 DNB. He inherited a substantial fortune of the death of his father and dedicated this to supporting writers and scientists. He was a patron of Beddoes’ Pneumatic Medical Institution and of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He participated in Davy’s Bristol experiments with nitrous oxide and later attended his lectures at the Royal Institution.

Weeks [also spelled ‘Weekes’], Shadrach (dates unknown). Childhood friend of Southey. A servant of Elizabeth Tyler, Southey’s aunt, and a recruit to Pantisocracy.

Wellesley, Arthur (1769–1852) DNB; Hist P. Pre-eminent British soldier of the nineteenth century, created Duke of Wellington in 1814. In later life he was a Tory politician, and Prime Minister 1828–1830, 1834. Southey’s relationship with Wellington was deeply ambiguous. He passionately supported Wellington’s aim of defeating the French invasion of Spain in 1808–1813, but was often critical of Wellington’s tactics, especially his caution and unwillingness to rely on Spanish help. In 1815 Southey was alarmed to find that an article he had written for the Quarterly Review on Wellington’s role at Waterloo had been personally censored by the general to remove unflattering references to his conduct of the battle. Southey’s History of the Peninsula War (1824–1832) retained a guarded attitude towards the Duke. In 1829, Southey was horrified by the decision of Wellington’s government to support Catholic Emancipation.

Wellesley, Richard, Marquess Wellesley (formerly Wesley; 1760–1842) DNB; Hist P. Governor-General of Bengal, who returned to England in early 1806. Wellesley’s governorship was marked by a drive to acquire more territory in India. On his return, political controversy soon erupted: James Paull (1770–1808; DNB), Indian trader (1790–1805), accused Wellesley of ruining his trade in Lucknow (Bengal) and undermining the nawab of Oudh’s authority there during the years 1801–1802. This challenge kept Wellesley out of political office until 1809. In that year Wellesley was appointed Ambassador to Spain, and he arrived in Seville in August 1809 to negotiate with the embattled Supreme Central Junta. Here, he found himself once again in the same theatre of military and diplomatic activity as his brother Sir Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington), his main aim being to support his brother’s army in the Peninsula. The Junta’s unwillingness to organise supplies for the British Army while urging a policy of attack led Wellesley (and Southey) to suspect some of the Junta of co-operating with the French. Southey was suspicious of Wellesley’s role in the Cabinet as Foreign Secretary 1809–1812, because he knew Wellesley favoured Catholic Emancipation. Nevertheless, he had some hopes that Wellesley’s appointment as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1821–1828 might lead to stern measures to suppress rural disorders.

West, Benjamin (1738–1820) DNB. Painter. Born in Pennsylvania, the son of an innkeeper, West travelled to Italy in 1760 and England in 1763, remaining there for the rest of his life. Although he worked in a number of genres, West became best known, first, as a history painter and, later in his career, as a painter of religious subjects. His works included, Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus (1768) and The Departure of Regulus from Rome (1769), the latter commissioned by George III. His The Death of General Wolfe (1770) demonstrated that it was possible to apply the principles and style of history painting to a near-contemporary event. Uncompleted works included a commission from William Beckford (1760–1844; DNB) to supply a series of paintings drawn from Revelation for Fonthill Abbey. West played an important role in obtaining the monarch’s patronage for a Royal Academy of Arts in 1768 and became its President in 1792. Royal favour gained him decorative commissions for Windsor Castle and the appointments of historical painter to the King (1772) and Surveyor of the King’s Pictures (1791). West rejected a knighthood in the early 1790s, mistakenly believing that he would instead be offered a hereditary title. He was not. Southey attended a dinner at the Royal Academy in 1817.

Westall, William (1781–1850) DNB. Painter and engraver, whose works played an important role in the shaping of Romantic ideas of the landscape. He was the half brother of the academician Richard Westall (1765–1836; DNB). In 1801 he was appointed as the landscape draughtsman for the voyage to New Holland and the South Seas commanded by Matthew Flinders. His travels eventually also took him to Canton and Bombay. He arrived back in England in 1805 and was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society later that year. He held exhibitions of his foreign views in 1808 and 1809. In 1811 he became a full member of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, contributing to their exhibitions of 1811 and 1812. In 1814 Flinders’s A Voyage to Terra Australis contained 37 illustrations by Westall. He had a nervous breakdown in 1815. With the help of Sir George Beaumont, he became a regular visitor to the Lakes, where he met Southey and Wordsworth, who both admired his work. Westall and Southey corresponded and the latter contributed an introduction to the former’s Views of the Lake and Vale of Keswick (1820). This described Westall as ‘by far the most faithful delineator of the scenery of the Lakes’.

White, Henry Kirke (1785–1806) DNB. The son of a butcher in Nottingham, White was a studious boy who, after being articled to a lawyer, learned classical languages and, with help from Capel Lofft (1753–1824 ; DNB, patron of Robert Bloomfield, published Clifton Grove, a Sketch in Verse, with other Poems in 1803. The book was violently attacked in the Monthly Review (February 1804); Southey then wrote to White offering encouragement. White also received help from evangelical Anglicans, who provided the means for him to study towards becoming a student at Cambridge. In 1805 he took up a place there, but his fierce regime of study exacerbated a delicate constitution, and he became ill and died. Southey then edited his Remains (1807), having been supplied with papers by White’s brother Neville. These were well received, went through several editions and established White’s reputation.

White, James (1787–1885). 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.

White, John Neville (1782–1845). Elder brother of Henry Kirke White. He was called by his second name, 'Neville'. Southey greatly admired him and the two men became regular correspondents. He initially trained as a medical student in London, but then became a hosiery merchant. In the latter capacity he was able to help Southey acquire books and newspapers from South America for his work on the Edinburgh Annual Register (1810–13) and the History of Brazil (1810–19). He then gave up his business, decided to become a clergyman, and in 1820 married Charlotte Sewell (1799–1873), the daughter of Joseph Sewell (1772–1844), a wealthy Norwich solicitor. White obtained a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Cambridge (1829) and became a clergyman in Norfolk, serving as Perpetual Curate of Great Plumstead from 1822, before his father-in-law, as patron, appointed him to the living at Rushall 1828–32. White then moved on to be Rector of Tivetshall 1832–45. His marriage to Charlotte Sewell produced ten children. One of his sons, Herbert Southey White (1830–63) he succeeded his uncle, Thomas Mack, as Vicar of Tunstead 1858–63), married a granddaughter of Southey’s, Edith Frances Warter (1837–63), so uniting the two families. Another son, James Sewell White (1827–1912), a barrister, inherited the Sloley estate in Norfolk from his uncle, James White, but only on condition that he changed his surname to ‘Neville’.

White, Joseph Blanco (formerly José María Blanco y Crespo; 1775–1841) DNB. 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.

White, Richard (1771–1847). Partner in Blake, White and Ainger, solicitors of Essex Street, London, who handled the business affairs of Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, 2nd Earl of Radnor (1750–1828). White corresponded with Southey in 1826 when the Earl arranged Southey’s election (without his knowledge) for the pocket borough of Downton.

Wilberforce, Robert (1802–1857) DNB. The second son of William Wilberforce and his wife Barbara. He was educated privately and then at Oriel College, Oxford, becoming a Fellow of the latter in 1826. However, he resigned his Fellowship in 1831 and took up a career in the Church of England, becoming Archdeacon of the East Riding in 1841. He was close to many of the leading figures in the Oxford Movement and converted to Roman Catholicism in 1854. Wilberforce met Southey as a young man during family visits to the Lake District. He later corresponded occasionally with him, particularly over the edition of his father’s letters produced by Wilberforce and his brother Samuel (1805–1873; DNB).

Wilberforce, William (1759–1833) DNB; Hist P. Son of a wealthy merchant in Hull; MP for Hull 1780–84, Yorkshire 1784–1812 and Bramber 1812–25. Wilberforce underwent a conversion to evangelical Christianity in the mid-1780s and became one of the country’s leading campaigners against the slave trade. Southey admired Wilberforce’s stance and the two started to correspond in 1813 over the need to promote Christian missionary activity in India.

Wilkin, Simon (1790–1862). Owner of a paper mill in Norwich, with wide interests, including entomology. Bankruptcy led him to establish a printing and publishing business in Norwich which produced the work of, among others, Amelia Opie and William Taylor. His most impressive project was his new edition of the life and works of Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682; DNB), which finally appeared in 1835–1836. Southey advised Wilkin on the early stages of this project and greatly admired Wilkin’s work.

Wilkinson, Thomas (1751–1836). Cumbrian landscape gardener, who owned a small estate at Yanwath, south of Penrith, and advised William Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale, on improvements to his grounds. Wilkinson, a Quaker, was a friend of Thomas Clarkson and of Wordsworth. A keen fellwalker and a poet, Wilkinson published Tours to the British Mountains; with the Descriptive Poems of Lowther, and Emont Vale (1824).

Williams, Helen Maria (1759–1827) DNB. Writer. She was the daughter of Charles Williams (d. 1762) and his second wife Helen Hay (1730–1812). Her early writings included Edwin and Eltruda (1782), Peru (1784) and Poems (1786); the latter elicited a tribute from William Wordsworth, his first publication (‘Sonnet on Seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams Weep at a Tale of Distress’). She moved in the circles that included Anna Letitia Barbauld, William Godwin, Samuel Rogers and Anna Seward, and was a committed abolitionist. From the early 1790s she lived mainly in France, which she first visited in 1790, or, during periods when it was unsafe for her to be there, in Switzerland. Her first hand account of the revolution – Letters from France – appeared in 1790 and eventually extended through eight volumes and several, revised editions. She translated writings by Bernadin de St Pierre (1737-1814) and Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859). Other works included an account of the Hundred Days of 1815. After Napoleon’s fall from power, her home in Paris became a regular calling-in spot for English tourists. Southey visited her during in May 1817 during his continental tour.

Wilson, Glocester [also Gloucester] (c. 1770–1850). Civil Servant. Son of Edward Wilson (1739–1804), Prebendary of Gloucester Cathedral and Canon of Windsor and Sarah Wilson, née Giffin (1734–1810). Edward Wilson had been a tutor to the young William Pitt. He was appointed one of the Commissioners of Customs in 1799, was a Fellow of the Royal Society and wrote two works in opposition to a return to the gold standard in 1811–1812. Wilson married Elizabeth Whitear (1775–1852), widow of Francis North (1778–1821), in 1825 and retired to Hastings in later life. Southey wrote to him in 1820 asking if he possessed a letter to John Wesley (1703–1791; DNB) from a female follower that might prove Wesley had made improper advances to this young woman. Southey had been informed that the letter had been stolen from Wesley’s desk by his wife when they separated and given to Glocester Wilson’s mother. Wilson replied that he only possessed a copy, not the original, of this letter. Southey therefore did not publish his information, as it remained hearsay.

Wilson, John [pseud. Christopher North] (1785–1854) DNB. Scottish author and journalist from a wealthy family. He was an early admirer of Wordsworth and settled in the Lake District in 1805. Southey did not know him well. Financial losses forced Wilson into journalism and he became the mainstay of Blackwood’s Magazine 1817–1854, where he wrote some notorious attacks on his former idols, Wordsworth and Coleridge.

Wilson, Molly (?–1820). Housekeeper at Greta Hall, daughter of a Keswick midwife. Beloved of the Southey and Coleridge families; ‘Wilsy’ left money in her will to the Southey and Coleridge children.

Wingfield, John (c. 1757–1825). Under-Master at Westminster School 1788–1802.

Winterbotham, William (1763–1829) DNB. Baptist Minister. He was born in London and apprenticed to a silversmith, but after a conversion experience he became a Baptist Minister in 1789 and the following year moved to Plymouth to take charge of the congregation at How’s Lane Meeting House. In 1793 he was sentenced to four years imprisonment for two radical sermons he preached to his congregation. Winterbotham passed most of his incarceration in Newgate prison and spent his time in writing – he published an account of his trial, sermons and works of divinity and geography. On his release he returned to preach in Plymouth, moving to Newmarket in 1808. Winterbotham’s and Southey’s lives intersected when Southey visited Newgate in January 1795 to see the radical publisher James Ridgway, to whom his brother-in-law, Robert Lovell, had delivered a copy of Southey’s play, Wat Tyler. Southey stated that Ridgway promised to publish the play, but he heard no more about the matter. However, when Wat Tyler finally saw the light of day in 1817, Winterbotham swore to an entirely different version of events in an affidavit. He claimed that Southey had visited Newgate on a number of occasions in late 1795 or early 1796. Furthermore, Winterbotham asserted that on one of these visits Southey was accompanied by the radical journalist Daniel Isaac Eaton (c. 1753–1814; DNB) and that Southey gave Winterbotham the manuscript of, and copyright to, Wat Tyler, asking him to publish it as a pamphlet. Winterbotham claimed to have no knowledge of how the play had come to be published in 1817 and to still possess the manuscript of Wat Tyler. This dispute over the copyright of Wat Tyler meant Southey lost his application for an injunction to prevent its publication. Moreover, it opened the floodgates to a series of cheap editions, none of which paid Southey a penny. Ironically, the play became Southey’s bestselling work. Southey was convinced that Winterbotham had perjured himself, though he admitted there might be a possibility that Winterbotham had confused Southey with Lovell. The circumstances surrounding the publication of Wat Tyler remain something of a mystery. Further confusion was added to the picture by the essayist John Foster (1770–1843; DNB) who claimed in a letter to Joseph Cottle that two unknown people in Worcester had copied the play from Winterbotham’s manuscript without his knowledge and provided it to the publishers in 1817.

Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759–1797) DNB. Author and promoter of women’s rights. Wollstonecraft was born in London, the fifth of seven children of Edward John Wollstonecraft (1736–1803), an increasingly unsuccessful businessman and farmer. Financial troubles forced the family to move frequently. Wollstonecraft initially worked as a lady’s companion, in a school she set up with her sisters and a friend, and as a governess. But in 1787 she decided to concentrate on a literary career, aided by the radical publisher, Joseph Johnson (1738–1809; DNB), for whom she wrote reviews and translations. Her Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), a contribution to the French Revolution debate, made her well-known. It was followed by A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), the feminist work for which she is now best remembered. Wollstonecraft spent the years 1792–1795 in France; though supportive of the revolution she was disillusioned by the Jacobin Terror of 1793–1794. She also began a relationship with Gilbert Imlay (1754–1828), an American adventurer, and they had one child, Fanny Imlay (1794–1816). After Wollstonecraft returned to London she undertook a business trip to Scandinavia for Imlay, which resulted in Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796). In 1797 Wollstonecraft married William Godwin and died shortly after giving birth to their child, the writer, Mary Godwin (1797–1851; DNB). Wollstonecraft’s reputation was severely damaged by Godwin’s Memoir (1798) of his wife, which revealed much about her turbulent private life. Southey was a great admirer of Wollstonecraft, and remained so, even when his own views became more conservative. He dedicated ‘The Triumph of Woman’ (published in his Poems (1797)) to her. They met in London in 1797, where they moved in the same radical circles. Southey mourned her death in his 1797 poem ‘To A. S. Cottle’.

Wood, Sara (dates unknown). A resident of the Cumbrian port of Maryport. She was possibly a member of the Wood family, who were leading shipbuilders in the town. Miss Wood was the mortgagee of Greta Hall, Southey’s home, from 1815, and Southey paid his rent directly to her for a period from 1817 onwards. Southey corresponded with her intermittently on a professional basis.

Wordsworth, Catherine (1808–1812) DNB. Fourth child of Mary and William Wordsworth. Born 5 September 1808. Died of convulsions on 4 June 1812.

Wordsworth, Christopher (1774–1846) DNB. Anglican clergyman and scholar. He was the youngest brother of William Wordsworth and, like his older brother, was educated at Hawkshead School and Trinity College, Cambridge (1792–1796), where he became a Fellow in 1798. He was ordained in 1799 and enjoyed a successful clerical career through the patronage of Charles Manners-Sutton (1755–1828; DNB), Archbishop of Canterbury 1805–1828, whose son Wordsworth had tutored. He served as Rector of Woodchurch, Kent, 1806–1808, Bocking in Essex 1808–1816, St Mary’s, Lambeth 1816–1820 and Uckfield, Sussex, 1820–1846. Wordsworth was elected Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1820–1841, where his length of tenure was not matched by his popularity or achievements. Wordsworth’s list of publications included an Ecclesiastical Biography (1810) and Who wrote Ikon Basilike? (1824). In 1804 he married Priscilla Lloyd (d. 1815), sister of Charles Lloyd.

Wordsworth, Dorothy (1771–1855) DNB. Author, poet and diarist. Dorothy was born in Cockermouth, the younger sister of William Wordsworth and the third of five children of John Wordsworth (1741–1783), a legal agent for the Lowther family, the most powerful landowners in the Lake District. The early death of her parents led to Dorothy spending the period 1778–1787 with a cousin in Halifax, followed by time in Penrith with her grandparents and with an uncle in Norfolk. From 1794 she began sharing a house with her brother William and the two siblings remained very close for the rest of their lives. They lived in Dorset and Somerset 1795–1798, travelled in Germany in 1798 and settled in the Lake District in 1799, initially at Dove Cottage, then at Allen Bank, and eventually at Rydal Mount. Dorothy began keeping a journal in 1798 and continued to do so at various times throughout her life. Her journals record both daily life and her many walking excursions and travels. She also wrote poetry. Dorothy and Southey probably met in 1795 but their relationship only flourished after the latter and his family moved to Keswick in 1803.

Wordsworth, Dorothy (‘Dora’) (1804–1847) DNB. The eldest daughter of William and Mary Wordsworth. Dora was named after her aunt, Dorothy Wordsworth, and was exceptionally close to her father. She became the second wife of the poet Edward Quillinan, a widowed family friend, in 1841. Dora was a talented artist and also published a Journal of a Few Months Residence in Portugal, and Glimpses of the South of Spain (1847). She was part of Southey’s extended family circle, and was on good terms with his daughters.

Wordsworth, John (1803–1875). Eldest son of William Wordsworth. He was educated locally at Ambleside school; William Wordsworth had some difficulty finding him a university place, before settling on New College, Oxford, in 1823. John Wordsworth was ordained in 1828 and became Rector of Moresby 1828–1832, and later Vicar of Brigham 1832–1875, Rector of Workington 1834–1837 and Rector of Plumbland 1840–1875.

Wordsworth, Mary (1770–1859). Wife of William Wordsworth. Mary was the daughter of John Hutchinson (1736–1783), a farmer. After her father’s death she lived with an aunt in Penrith. She became friendly with Dorothy Wordsworth, when the latter moved to Penrith in 1787 and the Wordsworth and Hutchinson families became increasingly close, visiting each other throughout the 1790s. Mary and William married on 4 October 1802 and had five children, two of whom died in childhood. Mary played an important role in the production of Wordsworth’s poetry throughout his life, acting as an amanuensis, making amendments to draft material and writing out fair copies. Southey and his family became acquainted with her after their move to Keswick in September 1803 and the two families developed a long-standing friendship, involving much mutual visiting.

Wordsworth, Thomas (1806–1812) DNB. Third child of Mary and William Wordsworth. Born 15 June 1806. Died of measles 1 December 1812.

Wordsworth, William (1770–1850) DNB. Poet. Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, the second of five of five children of John Wordsworth (1741–1783), a legal agent for the Lowther family, the most powerful landowners in the Lake District. After his mother died in 1778, Wordsworth was sent to Hawkshead Grammar School and then St John’s College, Cambridge (1787–1791). In 1791 he visited France and had a brief relationship with Annette Vallon, with whom he had a daughter, Caroline. Wordsworth began publishing poetry in 1793 and a legacy from his friend, Raisley Calvert, in 1795 allowed him to concentrate on a literary career. Wordsworth and Southey first met in Bristol in 1795 – Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, spent the years 1795–1798 living in Dorset and Somerset and became close to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth and Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads (1798) together and travelled in Germany in 1798–1799. Wordsworth then moved to the Lake District, living first at Dove Cottage, then at Allen Bank and finally at Rydal Mount. He married Mary Hutchinson, whom he had known since childhood, in 1802 and the couple had five children. Wordsworth’s relationship with Southey became closer after the Southeys moved to Keswick in 1803 and particularly after the death of John Wordsworth in 1805, when Southey provided comfort and managed some of Wordsworth’s business affairs in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. As the Southey and Wordsworth children grew up there was much mutual visiting between the two households. Wordsworth’s early radicalism faded, and he obtained the Government post of Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland in 1812 – a development that also ensured his views aligned with those of Southey. Wordsworth’s poetical reputation grew in the 1810s and 1820s, after the publication of Poems, in Two Volumes (1807) and The Excursion (1814). Southey early recognised Wordsworth as one of the great poets of his time, persistently defending his reputation – though he maintained a detached amusement about his unconscious pride and vanity. He did, though, seek Wordsworth’s advice on key moments in his career, as on his publication of a letter in the Courier in January 1822, attacking Byron. Wordsworth’s view of Southey’s work was also complex – he dedicated Peter Bell (1819) to Southey, but remained unenthusiastic about much of the latter’s poetry. After Southey’s death in 1843 Wordsworth succeeded him as Poet Laureate.

Wrangham, Francis (1769–1842). Writer and Church of England clergyman. Wrangham was born at Raysthorpe, near Malton, Yorkshire, the son of George Wrangham (1741–1791), a prosperous farmer. He was educated at Hull Grammar School and Magdalene and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Wrangham was ordained in 1793 and enjoyed a successful career in the Church thanks to the initial patronage of the Dukes of Manchester, culminating in posts as Archdeacon of Cleveland 1820–1828 and of the East Riding 1828–1841. Wrangham also achieved success as a poet, essayist and translator, beginning with winning the Seaton poetry prize at Cambridge in 1794. He knew Wordsworth well through their mutual friend Basil Montagu, and occasionally corresponded with Southey, sending him his translation of The Lyrics of Horace (1821).

Wynn, Charles Watkin Williams (1775–1850) DNB; Hist P. Politician. The second son of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, 4th Baronet, and his second wife Charlotte Grenville. He was educated at home by a tutor, the Revd Robert Nares, and later at Westminster (adm. 1784) and Christ Church, Oxford (matric. 1791, BA 1795, MA 1798, DCL 1810). Entered Lincoln’s Inn in 1795 and was called to the Bar in 1798. He married Mary Cunliffe, daughter of a baronet, in 1806. Wynn had excellent family and political connections as his maternal grandfather was the Prime Minister George Grenville (1712–1770; DNB). He served as an MP for Old Sarum (1797–1799) and for Montgomeryshire (1799–1850). From 1806–1807, he served in the Ministry of Talents (led by his uncle Lord Grenville) as Under Secretary to the Home Office, and secured a pension for Southey, which he described as ‘the only benefit I reap from 12 months of office’. From 1822–1828, he held a cabinet post as President of the Board of Control. Wynn met Southey at Westminster and the two remained friends for rest of their lives. He contributed to The Flagellant (1792) under pseudonyms which included ‘St Pardulph’. Wynn (who was not personally wealthy) gave Southey an annuity of £160 from 1797, and Southey dedicated Madoc (1805) to him.

Wynn, Mary (née Cunliffe; d. 1838). Daughter of Foster Cunliffe, 3rd Baronet (1755–1834) and wife of Charles Watkin Williams Wynn.

Wynn, Watkin Williams, 5th Baronet (1772–1840) Hist P. Elder brother of Charles Watkin Williams Wynn. Like his brother, Watkin was a long-serving MP 1794–1840, though he never held political office. His main interests were the family estates in North Wales, which he inherited in 1789, and military life – he raised the Ancient British Fencibles in 1794 and saw service in Ireland in 1798.

York, Richard (1778–1843). Deputy Lieutenant for the West Riding of Yorkshire and Lieutenant-Colonel in the yeomanry. He lived at Wighill Park, Tadcaster, Yorkshire. York married Lady Mary-Anne Lascelles (1775–1831), daughter of Edward, 1st Earl of Harewood (1740–1820), a Yorkshire landowner with extensive interests in the West Indies, in 1801. York was an occasional correspondent of Southey’s. In 1822 Southey thanked him for a gift of some pheasants and for compliments on his recent letter in the Courier.