Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831): Dutch lawyer, poet, teacher, arch-conservative and a central figure in the intellectual life of the Netherlands in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. He greatly admired Southey’s poetry and his second wife, Katharina Schweickhardt (1776–1830), translated Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814) into Dutch in 1823–1824. When Southey visited the Netherlands in 1825 he was taken ill and the Bilderdijks nursed him at their home in Leiden.

John Britton (1771-1857): Antiquary and topographer, co-editor of the illustrated topographical survey, in 27 volumes, The Beauties of England and Wales (1801–1818) and editor of Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain. Southey corresponded with him about Chatterton, and Britton’s book on the latter appeared in 1813.

Nathaniel Biggs (d. 1832): Printer and stationer in Bristol. He printed books, including works by Beddoes, Coleridge, Estlin and Southey, for congeries of publishers in London and the South-West of England. In the mid-late 1790s, he entered into a business partnership with Joseph Cottle, printing the Bristol edition of Coleridge and Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads (1798), and the revised editions of 1800 and 1802.

Robert Blakeney (1758-1822): Secretary and Treasurer to the Whitehaven Harbour Trustees. He was well known to Wordsworth through the latter’s work as Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland.

John Bowring (1792-1872): Politician, diplomat and writer. He was the eldest son of the Exeter wool merchant Charles Bowring (1769–1856) and his wife Sarah Jane Anne (d. 1828). A Unitarian, he worked initially for his father’s wool business and then in the counting-house of Kennaway & Co. In 1811 he moved to London where he was employed by Milford & Co, suppliers to Wellington’s troops in the Iberian peninsula. Bowring travelled widely in Europe on company business.

Wade Browne (1760-1821): Wealthy woollen merchant, who was Mayor of Leeds in 1791 and 1804, Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for Yorkshire. He retired to Ludlow in 1807 and Southey came to know him in 1808 when Browne and his family spent one of several summers in the Lakes. The two continued to correspond until Browne’s death.

Charlotte Broome (1761-1838): Daughter of the musicologist Charles Burney (1726–1814; DNB) and his first wife Esther Sleepe (d. 1762), and younger sister of the novelist Fanny Burney (1752–1840; DNB) and of Southey’s friend James Burney. She married, firstly, the physician Clement Francis (c. 1744–1792) and, secondly, the stockjobber, pamphleteer and poet Ralph Broome (1742–1805). In 1818 Broome asked Southey for a poem commemorating her younger son Ralph Broome (1801–1817).

Elizabeth Browne (dates unknown): Unmarried daughter of Wade Browne by his first wife. Southey visited the family home in Ludlow when she was a young woman and later corresponded with her.

John Trotter Brockett (c. 1788-1842): Antiquary. Son of the County Durham lawyer and mathematician John Brockett (1764–1827) and Frances Sophia (c. 1770–1833). In 1814 he married Isabella (d. 1865), eldest daughter of the merchant John Bell. Brockett practised law in Newcastle and also cultivated his interests in numismatics, antiquities and philology. He was a member of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society and a founder member of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle Upon Tyne. He was also elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Sarah Browne (1793/1794-1860s): A daughter of Wade Browne by his first wife. In 1823 she married Charles Collins Crump (c. 1790–1876), Rector of Halford, Warwickshire from 1826. Southey visited the Browne family home in Ludlow when she was a young woman and later corresponded with her.