Benjamin West (1738–1820): Painter. Born in Pennsylvania, the son of an innkeeper, West travelled to Italy in 1760 and England in 1763, remaining there for the rest of his life. Although he worked in a number of genres, West became best known, first, as a history painter and, later in his career, as a painter of religious subjects. His works included, Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus (1768) and The Departure of Regulus from Rome (1769), the latter commissioned by George III.

Alaric Alexander Watts (1797–1864): Journalist and poet. Born in London, he was the youngest son of John Mosley Watts and his wife Sarah. His parents separated when he was very young and a lengthy suit in Chancery followed. He was educated at Wye College Grammar School, Kent, and then at a school in Ashford. After that he held a variety of posts, including usher, private tutor, clerk and assistant teacher. By the late 1810s he was determined on a literary career and from January to June 1819 edited the New Monthly Magazine.

Thomas Wedgwood (1771–1805): Chemist. Third son of the potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795; DNB). He inherited a substantial fortune of the death of his father and dedicated this to supporting writers and scientists. He was a patron of Beddoes’ Pneumatic Medical Institution and of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He participated in Davy’s Bristol experiments with nitrous oxide and later attended his lectures at the Royal Institution.

William Webb (c. 1771–1845): Deputy Commissary-General in the British Army. Webb had written to Southey in 1817 to defend the quality of the horses sent out to Portugal in 1808 to pull the British Army’s artillery and Southey had included Webb’s defence at History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (London, 1823–1832), I, pp. 554–555. The poor quality of the artillery horses was one of the reasons given for British forces not advancing after their victory in the Battle of Vimeiro (1808). In 1824 he solicited Southey’s advice on finding a publisher.

Henry Kirke White (1785–1806): The son of a butcher in Nottingham, White was a studious boy who, after being articled to a lawyer, learned classical languages and, with help from Capel Lofft (1753–1824 ; DNB), patron of Robert Bloomfield, published Clifton Grove, a Sketch in Verse, with other Poems in 1803. The book was violently attacked in the Monthly Review (February 1804); Southey then wrote to White offering encouragement.

Elijah Waring (c. 1788–1857): Writer. Born in Alton, Hampshire, he was the son of Jeremiah Waring. He moved to Wales in c. 1810, living in Swansea and then Neath. He established the short-lived English-language periodical The Cambrian Visitor: A Monthly Miscellany in 1813. In 1817 he married Deborah (c. 1786–1867), sister of the prominent Quaker ironmaster and philanthropist Joseph Tregelles Price (1784–1854; DNB). Waring himself later abandoned Quakerism and joined the Wesleyan Methodists.

William Taylor (1765–1836): Reviewer and translator. Born in Norwich, the only child of William and Sarah Taylor. Taylor’s interest in German culture culminated in his Historic Survey of German Poetry (1828–1830). He was also a prolific contributor to the Annual Review, The Athenaeum, Monthly Magazine, and Monthly Review. Southey and Taylor met in 1798, whilst the former was on a visit to Great Yarmouth, where his brother Henry Herbert Southey was being tutored by George Burnett.

Elizabeth Tyler (1739–1821): The older, unmarried half-sister of Southey’s mother. She had spent her early life looking after an elderly relative and on his death received an inheritance which she then spent on living the high life. Her extravagance was a source of great concern to her relatives, in particular her half-brother Herbert Hill. Elizabeth Tyler was painted by Joshua Reynolds and moved in cultural circles in Bath and Bristol, counting amongst her friends the Palmers, owners of the Theatre Royal, Bath.

Sharon Turner (1768–1847): Lawyer and historian who lived at Red Lion square near the British Museum and used the manuscripts thus accessible to him to compile a History of the Anglo-Saxons, 4 vols (1799–1805), on which Southey drew in Madoc (1805). A long term friend and correspondent of Southey, in 1817 Turner gave him legal advice over the Wat Tyler piracy.

Elizabeth Bryan Vardon (née Tarbutt; 1780–1859): Daughter of the London merchant George Tarbutt. In 1797 she married Thomas Vardon. They had six children, including Thomas Vardon (1799–1867; DNB), Librarian of the House of Commons. Her sister, Caroline Forsyth Tarbutt, married Southey’s old Oxford friend George Maule (d. 1851) in 1810.