William Peachy, Colonel and later Lieutenant-General (c. 1763–1838): A Keswick resident, MP for Yarmouth (1797–1802) and Taunton (1826–30). An officer in the Wiltshire militia and a convivial host at his home in Keswick and later on Derwent Isle, Derwentwater. Southey was very fond of Peachy’s wife, Emma Frances Charter, for whom he wrote a poetic epitaph when she died in 1809. His third daughter, Emma (February 1808–May 1809), was named after her.

James Wellwood Moncreiff, 9th Baronet (1776–1851): Member of a family of Perthshire landowners, Scottish lawyer and Judge of the Court of Session from 1829. He was a Whig and supported the Free Church when it broke away from the Church of Scotland in 1843. Moncreiff was educated at Glasgow University and Balliol College, Oxford. He and his elder brother, William Wellwood Moncreiff (c. 1775–1813), knew Southey during their time at Balliol, and James corresponded briefly with Southey in 1816.

Robert Banks Jenkinson, Lord Hawkesbury/2nd Earl of Liverpool (1770–1828): A Tory politician who was successively Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies and then, from 1812–1827, Prime Minister. 

John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent (1735–1823): Commander in Chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet 1796–9, 1800–1801, First Sea Lord 1801–1804.

George Kenyon, 2nd Baron Kenyon (1776–1855): Lawyer, landowner in North Wales and prominent opponent of Catholic Emancipation. He was also a close friend of Andrew Bell. Once Southey agreed to write Bell’s biography, this involved him in some correspondence with Kenyon, who was a trustee of the organisation set up in Bell’s Will to promote his educational plans.

Charles Edward Kennaway (1800–1875): Son of Sir John Kennaway, 1st Baronet (1758– 1836), who made a fortune in service to the East India Company and became a landowner in Devon. He served as Vicar of Chipping Campden 1832–1872 and Canon of Gloucester Cathedral. Kennaway visited Southey in October 1819 and again in October 1820 when he was on a tour of the Lake District in company with his university friend, Leland Noel.

Robert Harry Inglis, 2nd Baronet (1786–1855): Only son of Hugh Inglis, 1st Baronet (1744–1820; Hist P), Director of the East India Company and MP for Ashburton 1802–1806. Inglis was exceptionally well connected – Robert Peel was a friend from their days at Oxford University. He was also close to William Wilberforce; in 1815 he became the guardian of the nine orphaned children of their mutual friend, the banker and abolitionist Henry Thornton (1760–1815; DNB). Inglis was MP for Dundalk 1824–1826, Ripon 1828–1829, and Oxford University 1829–1854, but never held high office.

Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773–1850): Scottish, Whig lawyer and critic, from 1803 editor of the Edinburgh Review and, as such, Southey’s bête noire for damning reviews of his, Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s poetry (Jeffrey is credited with identifying them as a school or sect of poets; see Edinburgh Review, 1 (October 1802), 63–83). Southey affected indifference but was acutely sensitive to Jeffrey’s reviews.

John Baker Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield (1735–1821): Politician, close friend and executor of Edward Gibbon (1737–1794; DNB). He was an MP for Coventry, 1780–1784, and Bristol, 1790–1802. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Sheffield in 1802, and obtained an earldom in 1816. Southey corresponded with him in 1817–1818, when Sheffield offered Southey sight of the papers of his son-in-law, General Sir Henry Clinton (1771–1829; DNB), to help with his History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).

Francis Ingram-Seymour-Conway, 2nd Marquess of Hertford (1743–1822): Lord Chamberlain 1812–1821, and as such, a key figure in the appointment of Southey as Poet Laureate in 1813.