Christopher Wordsworth (1774–1846): Anglican clergyman and scholar. He was the youngest brother of William Wordsworth and, like his older brother, was educated at Hawkshead School and Trinity College, Cambridge (1792–1796), where he became a Fellow in 1798. He was ordained in 1799 and enjoyed a successful clerical career through the patronage of Charles Manners-Sutton (1755–1828; DNB), Archbishop of Canterbury 1805–1828, whose son Wordsworth had tutored.

Thomas Wordsworth (1806–1812): Third child of Mary and William Wordsworth. Born 15 June 1806. Died of measles 1 December 1812.

William Wordsworth (1770–1850): Poet. Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, the second of five of five children of John Wordsworth (1741–1783), a legal agent for the Lowther family, the most powerful landowners in the Lake District. After his mother died in 1778, Wordsworth was sent to Hawkshead Grammar School and then St John’s College, Cambridge (1787–1791). In 1791 he visited France and had a brief relationship with Annette Vallon, with whom he had a daughter, Caroline.

Charles Watkin Williams Wynn (1775–1850): Politician. The second son of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, 4th Baronet, and his second wife Charlotte Grenville. He was educated at home by a tutor, the Revd Robert Nares, and later at Westminster (adm. 1784) and Christ Church, Oxford (matric. 1791, BA 1795, MA 1798, DCL 1810). Entered Lincoln’s Inn in 1795 and was called to the Bar in 1798. He married Mary Cunliffe, daughter of a baronet, in 1806. Wynn had excellent family and political connections as his maternal grandfather was the Prime Minister George Grenville (1712–1770; DNB).

Sara Wood (dates unknown): A resident of the Cumbrian port of Maryport. She was possibly a member of the Wood family, who were leading shipbuilders in the town. Miss Wood was the mortgagee of Greta Hall, Southey’s home, from 1815, and Southey paid his rent directly to her for a period from 1817 onwards. Southey corresponded with her intermittently on a professional basis.

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.

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.

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.

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

Richard White (1771–1847): Partner in Blake, White and Ainger, solicitors of Essex Street, London, who handled the business affairs of Jacob Pleydell–Bouverie, 2nd Earl of Radnor (1750–1828). White corresponded with Southey in 1826 when the Earl arranged Southey’s election (without his knowledge) for the pocket borough of Downton.