Sara Hutchinson (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.

Arthur Hussey (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.

James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784–1859): 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.

Thomas Hughes (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.

Mary Anne Hughes (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.

Joseph Hucks (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.

William Howley (1766–1848): 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.

Thomas How (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.

John Horseman (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.

James Hook (c. 1772–1828): 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.