Grosvenor Charles Bedford (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.

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.

Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808): 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.

Anna Maria Beddoes (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.

Lady Margaret Beaumont (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.

George Howland Beaumont, 7th Baronet (1753-1827): 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.

Bernard Barton (1784-1849): 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.

Charles James Barrington (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.

Frederick ('Ginger') Barnes (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.

Mary Barker (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).