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 ...

Charles Collins (c. 1777-1806?): School friend. The son of William Collins and his wife Sarah Astell of Maize Hill, Greenwich, Kent. Educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford (matric. Jan 1793). Married Jane Forman, by whom he had one son. Died c. 1806. Collins’s biography is difficult to reconstruct as Records of Old Westminsters and Alumni Oxoniensis both confuse him with his son, also named Charles Collins, and give a later date of death. A note, now in the Huntington Library, written by an eponymous descendant confirms that he died young.

Isaac Corry (1753-1813): Prominent Irish politician. Born in Newry, son of the merchant and MP Edward Corry. Educated at the Royal School, Antrim and BA, Trinity College, Dublin, 1773. Succeeded his father as MP for Newry in the Irish Parliament, 1776. Originally an opposition MP, he first gained office as surveyor-general of the ordnance in 1788 and rose to be Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1799–1804. Always a controversial figure, he fought a duel with the opposition MP, Henry Grattan (1746–1820; DNB), in 1800.

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’.

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.

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.

Manuel do Cenáculo (1724–1814): Bishop of Beja, 1770–1802, Archbishop of Evora 1802–1814. Member of the Franciscan Order and Professor of Theology at the University of Coimbra 1751–1755. Cenáculo was closely associated with the reforms of the Marquis of Pombal, Prime Minister of Portugal 1750–1777, and retired to his bishopric when Pombal fell in 1777, devoting his energies to his library and promoting education. When Southey visited Portugal in 1800–1801 he obtained a letter of introduction to the Bishop from his uncle, Herbert Hill, and visited him at Beja in April 1801.

Sir Francis Legatt Chantry (1781-1841): English sculptor, who became the most well-known and fashionable practitioner in his field in the Regency era. Chantrey was the son of a small farmer from Derbyshire and started his career as a portrait painter, concentrating on sculpture from 1807 onwards. In 1809 he married a wealthy cousin, Mary Ann Wale (1787–1875), enabling him to move into a house and studio in Pimlico. From 1811–1812 onwards he was immensely successful and by 1822 could charge 200 guineas for a bust.

John Cawood (d. 1846): Tory ironfounder from Leeds. He took an active interest in issues relating to the poor and in 1819 was part of a delegation sent by the Leeds Poor Law authority to inspect Robert Owen’s New Lanark mills. He later (1844) became the first chairman of the new poor law authority in Leeds. In 1819 he wrote to Southey, sending a pamphlet he had written on the condition of the poor, probably A Plain Statement, Exhibiting the Whole of What Has Been Hyperbolically Designated, The Parish Controversy (1819).