William Rough (1772/3–1838): 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.

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

William Ross (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).

William Roscoe (1753–1831): 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.

Samuel Rogers (1763–1855): 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.

Henry Crabb Robinson (1777–1867): 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.

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).

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

Edward Roberts (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.

Barré Charles Roberts (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.