Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797): 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.

William Winterbotham (1763–1829): 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.

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

Molly Wilson (?–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.

John Wilson [pseud. Christopher North] (1785–1854): 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.

Glocester [also Gloucester] Wilson (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.

Helen Maria Williams (1759–1827): 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.

Thomas Wilkinson (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).

Simon Wilkin (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.

Robert Wilberforce (1802–1857): 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.