Barbara Seton (dates unknown): The only child of George and Barbara Seton and a cousin of Agnes (1764–1852; DNB) and Mary (1763–1852; DNB) Berry, friends of Horace Walpole (1717–1797; DNB). In 1807, she married the Revd James Bannister, Rector of Iddesleigh. Her date of death is unknown, but she is said to have been living in Honiton, Devon in 1838. Seton met Southey during his second visit to Portugal in 1800–1801, and corresponded with him until 1810. She was on very good terms with both Southey and his wife.

Poet and scholar. Sayers was born in London but after his father died when Sayers was a child, he spent his early years mainly in Suffolk and Norfolk. Sayers inherited a small estate from his grandfather in 1778 and qualified as a doctor in the Netherlands but decided to concentrate on literature from 1789 onwards. He settled in Norwich and became a central figure in the city’s intellectual life – William Taylor was an old schoolfriend.

Richard Sharp (1759–1835): Businessman, Dissenter, radical and writer, but most famous for his conversational powers – hence his nickname ‘Conversation’ Sharp. He was born in Newfoundland, the son of the elder Richard Sharp, an army officer. But the family soon returned to England and Sharp took over his grandfather’s hat-making business, later moving into the West India trade. He was a member of various radical organisations in the 1790s and Whig MP for Castle Rising 1806–1812 and Portarlington 1816–1819.

Susan Reeve (1788–1853): The daughter of the Unitarian hymn-writer, minister and manufacturer John Taylor (1750–1826; DNB) and his wife Susanna (1755–1823; DNB). She married Reeve in 1807. Of their three children, only one survived infancy: Henry Reeve (1813–1895; DNB), later editor of the Edinburgh Review.

Robert Rouse (fl. 1820s): Clerk in the East India Company, working in its ‘Private Trade Warehouse’ in Leadenhall Street. Southey corresponded with him in 1826, when Rouse acted as an intermediary for someone offering Southey sight of previously unused letters that shed light on John Wesley (1703–1791; DNB).

Barré Charles Roberts (1789–1810): Third child and second son of Edward Roberts. A delicate child, he showed a precocious interest in antiquities and amassed a coin collection that was said to be worth 4,000 guineas. He was a student at Christ Church, Oxford, 1805–1808, and contributed to the Gentlemans Magazine and Quarterly Review, especially on numismatics. After his early death, Grosvenor Bedford, who was his cousin, compiled a Memoir (1814), which was, unsurprisingly, favourably reviewed by Southey in the Quarterly Review.

Samuel Reid (c. 1775–1821): A Bristol friend of Southey’s; probably the younger brother of the insurance broker William Reid (b. 1774). Sam Reid had intended to pursue a career as a Unitarian minister, but abandoned it after a crisis of faith. In 1806 he moved to Liverpool, where he worked as a private tutor.

Edward Roberts (d. 1835): Chief Clerk of the Pells; father of Barré Charles Roberts. He was related to the Bedfords. Grosvenor Bedford published an edition of Barré Charles’s papers and a memoir in 1814. Southey corresponded with Edward Roberts at this time.

William Rough (1772/3–1838): Lawyer and poet; only son of William Rough. Educated Westminster (adm. 1786, King’s Scholar 1789) and Trinity College, Cambridge (matric. 1792, BA 1796, MA 1799), he entered Gray’s Inn in 1796, and was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1801. He married Harriet (1778–c. 1820), an illegitimate daughter of John Wilkes (1725–1797; DNB). He served in the judiciary in Demerara and Essequibo and later Ceylon and was knighted in 1837.

John Rumney (1796–1861): Surgeon and Deputy Postmaster of Brough, Westmorland 1815–1844. He was an old friend of Tom Southey, from Tom’s days farming in the Brough area, and acted as the midwife at the birth of some of his children. Robert Southey wrote to him in 1822 asking for assistance in sorting out an incorrect invoice.