Thomas Smith (c. 1770–1822): Country gentleman and JP, of Unitarian and liberal views and literary and scientific interests. He was born in Cirencester, and later owned estates at Bownham House, near Minchinhampton, Gloucestshire and at Easton Grey, near Malmesbury, Wiltshire. He trained as a barrister but a speech impediment meant that he never practiced. He was known as the ‘Macenas of his neighbourhood’ for his patronage of men of letters and his philanthropy.

Grace Smith (née Weatherall; 1751/2–1832): Wife of Major-General John Smith (1754–1837; DNB); grandmother of Charlotte-Julia Jephson. She visited the Lakes, including Keswick, in 1812.

Bertha Southey (1809–1877): Fifth child of Robert and Edith Southey. She was educated at Greta Hall by her father and her aunts, Sarah Coleridge and Mary Lovell. Bertha was persistently described by Southey as the shyest of his children and spent a year in 1824–1825 and again in 1830–1831 with John Rickman and his family in order to meet a wider social circle. When her mother became ill in the mid-1830s Bertha shared Edith Southey’s care with her sister, Kate.

Thomas Woodruffe Smith (c. 1747–1811): A wealthy Quaker merchant who lived at Stockwell Park, Surrey, with his second wife, Anne Reynolds (dates unknown) of Carshalton. The Smiths were friends of Grosvenor Charles Bedford and Duppa.

William Hawkes Smith (1786–1840): Author, draughtsman and lithographic printmaker from Birmingham. He was a Unitarian and supporter of a variety of radical causes, and in 1818 sent Southey his proposed set of illustrations for Thalaba the Destroyer (1801). Southey agreed to try and promote the work, and endeavoured to persuade his friends to subscribe to the publication of Smith’s work, which Longman brought out later in 1818.

Harriet Shelley (née Westbrook; 1795–1816): Shelley’s first wife. They eloped and married in 1811. They had two children, but Shelley left her in 1814. She committed suicide two years later.

William Smyth [also Smythe] (1765–1849): Historian and poet. Born in Liverpool, he was educated at Eton College and Peterhouse, Cambridge. His appointment as Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge in 1807 was controversial and attributed to patronage by the Holland House set. He wrote poetry – publishing English Lyrics in 1807 – and took an interest in contemporary poets, including Henry Kirke White, whom he knew during the latter’s time at university.

Percy Bysshe Shelley: (1792–1822): Eldest son of the wealthy Sussex landowner, baronet and MP, Sir Timothy Shelley (1753–1844). He became a published poet and novelist while still at Eton and was expelled from University College, Oxford, in March 1811 for writing The Necessity of Atheism (1811). In August 1811 he eloped with, and married, Harriet Westbrook (1795–1816), causing a temporary breakdown in relations with his family.

Elizabeth Smith (c. 1764–1859): Wife of Thomas Smith and a noted collector of autographs and manuscripts.

Herbert Southey (1806–1816): Southey’s first son, a boy of great intellectual promise.