John May (1775–1856): Merchant, financier and business agent. A member of a wealthy family, both his father (Joseph) and grandfather were successful merchants in Lisbon. He was educated at Newcome’s Academy, Hackney, where he was taught by George Coleridge, with whom he became lifelong friends. May went to Lisbon in 1793, in order to learn the family trade, returning to England in 1796. May married Susannah Frances Livius in 1799. The marriage produced four children. May and Southey met in Portugal in 1796. Their friendship was to last until the latter’s death.

Henry Hart Milman (1791–1868): Clergyman, poet and historian. His brilliant career at the University of Oxford included winning the Newdigate Prize in 1812 and he was elected Professor of Poetry 1821–1831. He became a Fellow of Brasenose College in 1814 and was ordained in 1816. Milman’s ecclesiastical career was equally illustrious, despite controversies over his orthodoxy prompted by his History of the Jews (1830), and he became a Canon of Westminster Abbey in 1835 and Dean of St Paul’s in 1849.

John Miller (1787–1858): Clergyman. Educated at the University of Oxford, where he won the Chancellor’s Medal for Latin prose and became a great friend of John Keble (1792–1866; DNB). In 1817 he delivered the University’s Bampton Lectures, on the subject of ‘The Divine Authority of Holy Scripture’. When he met Southey in 1820, Miller was a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, and Curate of Bishopstone, Wiltshire. He sent Southey a copy of his work, most probably his Bampton lectures.

John Mitford (1781–1859): Suffolk clergyman, who took little interest in his parochial duties but played an important role in London literary life. He was a noted editor (especially of the works of Thomas Gray), editor of the Gentlemans Magazine 1834–1850, and close friend of Samuel Rogers and Bernard Barton. In 1810 he wrote to Southey for advice about his poem, Agnes, the Indian Captive (1811).

See Fricker, Mary (1771–1862)

Lovell family: A family of Bristol-based Quakers and pin manufacturers. Robert Lovell (1746–1804) and his first wife Edith Bourne (1745–1782) had two sons, Joseph and Robert (Southey’s brother-in-law), and five daughters. Lovell’s second marriage to Lydia Hill (1754–1816) produced five more children. Southey was on reasonable terms with all the Lovells, but their relationship was clouded by struggles over adequate financial provision for the son and widow of Robert Lovell.

Anna Dorothea Montagu (née Benson; 1773–1856): A former friend of Robert Burns, the widow of Thomas Skepper, a lawyer in York, and daughter of Edward Benson, a York wine merchant. She was Mary Barker’s friend, and married Basil Montagu in 1808.

Arthur Malkin (1803–1888): Civil engineer, writer and alpinist. Son of Benjamin Heath Malkin (1769–1842; DNB), headmaster of the grammar school at Bury St Edmunds 1809–1828. He visited Southey in 1824. His connection to Southey was probably through Susannah Henry, William Peachy’s second wife, whose mother lived in Bury St Edmunds.

James Heywood Markland (1788–1864): Antiquary. Born in Manchester, in 1808 he moved to London to practise law. He married Charlotte (d. 1867), daughter of Sir Francis Freeling, in 1821. Markland was a committed Anglican, collector of fine editions, and writer on literary history, and on antiquarian and religious subjects. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, member of the Roxburghe Club, and, after retiring to Bath in 1841, an active member of the Royal Archaeological Institute and the British Archaeological Association.

Robert Lovell (1771–1796): Poet. Born in Bristol, the son of a wealthy Quaker manufacturer (initially of cabinets and later of pins), and his first wife Edith Bourne, a Quaker minister. Lovell possibly entered the manufacturing business (on his death he was described as a pin manufacturer) but was ill at ease in the commercial world. In 1794 he married Mary Fricker. His family disapproved of the match because she was not a Quaker and had worked as an actress. Their son, also named Robert, was born in 1795.