Henry Nelson Coleridge (1798-1843): Nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and later the editor of his works, including, most importantly, Table Talk (1835). Henry Nelson was a barrister, classical scholar and contributor to the Quarterly Review. He is now best known as the husband of his cousin, Sara Coleridge, whom he married in 1829.

John Taylor Coleridge (1790-1876): Nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He began his education under another uncle, George Coleridge, leading to a close friendship with John May, who was one of George Coleridge’s former pupils. After John Taylor Coleridge’s triumphant career at Oxford University, May paid for his tour of Europe in 1814 and loaned him £1,000 to set up as a barrister in 1819. His career took a long time to prosper and he undertook a great deal of journalism, including briefly editing the Quarterly Review in 1825–1826.

Edward Combe (c. 1773/4-1848): Clergyman. Son of Richard Combe of Harley St. Educated at Westminster (adm. June 1785) and Christ Church, Oxford (matric. October 1792, BA 1796, MA 1803). Admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, January 1795. Perpetual Curate of Barrington, Somerset, 1810; Rector of Earnshill and of Donyatt from 1821. Southey met Combe at Westminster and later described him as one of his ‘most intimate acquaintances’ during his years at school. Combe was known by the nicknames ‘His Majesty’ or the ‘King of Men’.

Josiah Conder (1789-1855): Started life in his father’s booksellers’ business, which he inherited and ran 1811–1819. However, he became better known as an industrious writer, editor and compiler, particularly of works on Nonconformist themes, and as owner and editor of the Eclectic Review, 1814–1837. In 1815 he married the poet Joan Elizabeth Thomas (c. 1786–1877) who wrote as ‘Eliza Thomas’.

Jeremiah Collins (1774-1853): Clergyman. Educated at Balliol College, Oxford (BA 1794). He eventually returned to his native Cornwall, where he became chaplain of the Truro Infirmary. He and Southey were friends for a short time in Oxford, but by mid-1794 they were permanently estranged.

William Hart Coleridge (1789-1849): Nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was educated by his uncle George Coleridge, master of the grammar school at Ottery St Mary. This was followed by a glittering career at Oxford University. He used his prestige in the University to secure the scholarship, known as a Postmastership, that allowed Hartley Coleridge to attend Merton College, Oxford. William Hart Coleridge was a clergyman who later became Bishop of Barbados and the Leeward Islands 1824–1842.

The children of Robert Cottle, an unsuccessful Bristol tailor and draper. The family included Amos, Joseph and Robert (?1780–1858), a painter and founder of his own religious sect (‘the Cottlelites’), and five sisters, Elizabeth (c. 1764–1789), Mary (?1772–1839), Ann (?1780–1855), Sarah (d. 1834) and Martha (c. 1785–1800). Southey seems to have been acquainted with the entire Cottle family. After their secret marriage in November 1795, his wife Edith lived with the Cottle sisters for some of the time Southey was absent in Spain and Portugal.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): Poet, critic, philosopher and Southey’s brother-in-law. His complex — at times passionate — four-decade relationship with Coleridge had a major impact both on Southey’s life and on his critical posterity. It began in Oxford in summer 1794 when Robert Allen introduced Southey to a visitor from Cambridge — Coleridge. It was a fateful meeting, leading to the failed scheme of Pantisocracy, literary collaboration, and — eventually — mutual disenchantment. As Southey later recorded: ‘that meeting fixed the future fortunes of us both ...

Amos Simon Cottle (1768?-1800): Poet and translator. Elder brother of Joseph Cottle. Educated at the school run by Richard Henderson (1736/7–1792) at Hanham, near Bristol, and Magdalene College, Cambridge (matric. 1795, BA 1799). He then embarked on a legal training. He spent the final year of his life in London, where he was a friend of George Dyer and Charles Lamb, and died in his chambers at Clifford’s Inn. Author of Icelandic Poetry, or, The Edda of Saemund, Translated into English verse (1797; published by Joseph Cottle and with a dedicatory poem by Southey).

Joseph Cottle (1770-1853): Bristolian author, bookseller and publisher. Although Coleridge’s biographer James Dykes Campbell joked ‘I never heard of ... [Cottle’s] having ... any [parents], and think it very doubtful. I should think he was found under a booksellers counter wrapped in Felix Farley’s newspaper’, Joseph was in fact the second child of Robert and Sarah Cottle. He was educated at the school run by Richard Henderson (1736/7–1792) at Hanham, near Bristol. In 1791 he opened a shop as a printseller, stationer, binder and bookseller in Bristol.