Charles James Fox (1749–1806): 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).
Benjamin Flower (1755–1829): 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.
Samuel Favell (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
James Everett (1784–1872): 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).
Edward Everett (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.
Greeton Evans: 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.
Susanna Bishop Estlin (d. 1842): The second wife of John Prior Estlin.
John Prior Estlin (1747–1817): 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).
Henry Erskine (1746–1817): Lawyer and politician. Younger brother of the barrister and, from 1806–7, Lord Chancellor Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine (1750–1823; DNB).
Peter Elmsley (1774–1825): 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.
