Willem de Clercq (1795-1844): Poet and important figure in the Réveil, the anti-modernist spiritual revival in the Dutch Reformed Church of the Netherlands, which also included de Clercq’s friend, Willem Bilderdijk. He was born in Amsterdam, the child of wealthy grain merchants and studied French, German and Greek with the intention of becoming a preacher, but his ambitions were thwarted by the French invasion of 1813.

Derwent Coleridge (1800-1883): Third son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Sarah Fricker; and Southey’s nephew. Anglican clergyman, writer and educationist. First Principal of St Mark’s teacher training college in Chelsea 1841–1864.

(David) Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849): Eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Sarah Fricker; and Southey’s nephew, nicknamed ‘Job’ for his seriousness as a child. Southey played a considerable part in Hartley’s upbringing after his father separated from his mother, leaving his children in Southey’s care at Greta Hall. In 1808 Hartley was sent to Ambleside School and in 1815 Southey was able to organise sufficient donations from friends and family to allow Hartley to proceed to Merton, College, Oxford.

Adam Clarke (1762-1832): Wesleyan Methodist minister and scholar. Born in County Londonderry, Ireland, he was the son of an Anglican schoolmaster and his Presbyterian wife. He became a follower of John Wesley (1703–1791; DNB) in 1779 and was later a prominent Methodist. An autodidact and gifted linguist, Clarke’s wide-ranging interests encompassed Persian, Arabic, Hindu, Coptic and Sanskrit texts, alchemy, the occult, astronomy, folk tales, mineralogy and conchology.

Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846): Campaigner for the abolition of the slave trade, and a friend of the Wordsworths, Coleridge and Southey. He moved to the Lake District in 1794 and lived in retirement at Eusemere, near Pooley Bridge, Ullswater, until 1806. Clarkson and his wife returned to her native Suffolk in 1806, and remained there until his death. He returned to the campaign against the slave trade in 1804 and wrote ceaselessly in the cause until the passing of the 1833 Act abolishing slavery in the British empire. He also wrote admiringly of the Quakers.

Henry Colburn (1784/5-1855): One of the leading publishers of the first half of the nineteenth century. After setting up in business in 1806 he became well-known for promoting popular fiction, including ‘silver fork’ society novels, naval adventures and historical novels. He also had an interest in numerous periodicals, including the New Monthly Magazine, the Literary Gazette and the Athenaeum, and gained a reputation for ‘puffing’ his own authors in their pages.

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.

William Cobbett (1763-1835): A journalist whose weekly paper, the Political Register, took an anti-jacobinical line until 1804, but thereafter became progressively more radical, supporting Burdett at the Westminster election of 1807. From 1810 to 1812 he was imprisoned after being prosecuted by the government for criticising flogging in the militia. Cobbett’s political development was the exact opposite of Southey’s and Southey was a consistent critic of Cobbett.

Richard Cattermole (1795?-1858): Writer and Anglican clergyman. He married Maria Frances Giles in 1825. Coleridge, whom Cattermole knew through the Royal Society of Literature, stood as godfather to their son, George Richard Coleridge Cattermole (bap. 1828). Cattermole was secretary to the Royal Society of Literature from 1823–1852 and in 1843 became one of the first members of the newly established Society of British Authors. Cattermole’s own writings encompassed theology, literature, art and history.

Anthony Carlisle (1768-1840): Surgeon and anatomist. Born at Stillington, Durham, the third son of Thomas Carlisle and his first wife Barbara (d. 1768). Studied medicine in York, Durham and London, and was appointed surgeon to the Westminster Hospital in 1793. He married Martha Symmons in 1800 and in the same year was one of the founding members of the Royal College of Surgeons, serving as its president in 1829 and 1839. He moved in metropolitan literary and scientific circles, attending Mary Wollstonecraft on her death-bed in 1797.