James Grahame (1765–1811): Scottish poet and, from 1809, a clergyman of the Church of Scotland. He published The Sabbath (1804) (reviewed by Southey in the Annual Review (1806)), British Georgics (1808) (reviewed by Southey in the Quarterly Review (1810)), and The Siege of Copenhagen; a Poem (1808).

John Guthrie (d. 1824): Bookseller, originally from Aberdeenshire he moved to Edinburgh where he was a founder of the firm Tait & Guthrie. In autumn 1803 Henry Herbert Southey lodged with him at 2 Nicolson St.

William Godwin (1756–1836): Philosopher, journalist and novelist. Godwin was born in Wisbech and grew up in a middle class and fiercely Nonconformist household. He was educated at Hoxton Academy and was a Congregationalist Minister in Suffolk 1778–1782, before resigning his post and moving to London to try and make a living from literary work. His views became increasingly radical, and he embraced atheism and philosophical anarchism.

James Gooden (1773–1851): A merchant in the Portugal and Brazil trade with literary and antiquarian tastes. He assembled an impressive collection of books and manuscripts on Brazil and Southey thanked Gooden for lending him ‘the Life of F. Joam d’Almeida, among other books, and a manuscript Apology for the Jesuits in Paraguay and Maranham, of great importance’; see Southey’s History of Brazil, 3 vols (London, 1810–1819), II, p. [v].

Sarah Gooch, née Travers (b. 1788): Second wife of Robert Gooch, whom she married in January 1814. She was the sister of the surgeon Benjamin Travers (1783–1858).

George Bellas Greenough (1778–1855): Geologist and MP. He was the only surviving child of George Bellas (d. 1784) and his wife Sarah. In 1795 he adopted the surname of his maternal grandfather, the wealthy apothecary Thomas Greenough, on inheriting the latter’s fortune. A Dissenter, he completed his studies at the University of Göttingen in the late 1790s and befriended Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He returned to England in 1801 and was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1807. In the same year he was a founder-member of the club that became the Royal Geological Society.

William Gonne (d.1815): Wealthy merchant, based in Portugal. He first met Southey in 1800, when he was the packet agent at Lisbon. In 1815 his daughter Louisa married Henry Herbert Southey.

Robert Gooch (1784–1830): Obstetric physician from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. He became a close friend of Henry Herbert Southey when they both studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and also knew William Taylor. Gooch graduated MD in 1807 and became, as Henry also did, a contributor to the journal the London Medical Record. In 1811–1812 Gooch set up a successful medical practice in London, and published important works on puerperal fever. Gooch met Southey on a tour of the Lakes in 1811 and the two began a lifelong correspondence.

Sarah (Sara) Fricker (1770–1845): Southey’s sister-in-law. The eldest surviving child of Stephen Fricker and Martha Rowles. Sarah and Southey were childhood friends, and it was through her that Southey met Robert Lovell in late 1793. Southey may well have been romantically interested in Sarah, before he became engaged to her sister, Edith Fricker, in 1794. Sarah met Samuel Taylor Coleridge through Southey and the two married on 4 October 1795. They had three surviving children – Hartley, Derwent and Sara.

George IV (1762–1830): Prince Regent 1811–1820; King of the United Kingdom 1820–1830. Southey met him at a Court levee on 11 November 1813 following his installation as Poet Laureate and gave him what little praise he felt he could in one of his Congratulatory Odes (1814). George IV made only fleeting appearances in the rest of Southey’s Laureate verses and Southey did not commemorate either his Coronation or his death.