Anna Letitia Barbauld (née Aikin; 1743-1825): Poet, essayist and children’s author, sister of John Aikin and aunt of Arthur Aikin, Southey’s editor at the Annual Review. She married the Revd Rochemont Barbauld (1749–1808) on 26 May 1774. Barbauld and Southey met in 1797 and had many acquaintances in common, including George Dyer, William Godwin and Joseph Johnson. Barbauld was publicly linked with the literary and scientific experimentalism of Southey’s circle, and featured in the Anti-Jacobin satire ‘The Pneumatic Revellers’ (1800).

Robert Baldwin (1780-1858): Printer, publisher and bookseller, in partnership with Charles Cradock from 1810. He founded the London Magazine in 1820–1821 and commissioned Southey to produce an edition of The Works of William Cowper (1835–1837). Baldwin’s firm went bankrupt and this involved Southey in an extensive correspondence before he received part of the payment he was promised. Baldwin spent the rest of his life as stock-keeper of the Stationers’ Company.

John Adamson (1787-1855): Solicitor, antiquary, Portuguese scholar and leading figure in the intellectual life of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He corresponded with Southey over their shared interest in Portuguese literature and translation. His Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Luis de Camoens (1820) was greatly admired by Southey.

Ann Attersol [also known as Ann Holmes, Ann Hunter, Ann Doherty, Ann de la Pigueliere] (c. 1786-1831/1832): Daughter of Thomas Holmes (1751–1827), a wealthy East India merchant, who changed his name to Hunter on inheriting the Gobions estate in Hertfordshire in 1802 from his wife’s grandfather. The same year, Ann Holmes eloped, aged sixteen, with Hugh Doherty, an impecunious thirty-year-old Irishman and officer in the Light Dragoons. Their marriage soon broke down, and Doherty published his account of events in The Discovery (1807).

Arthur Aikin (1773-1854): Son of John Aikin and nephew of Anna Letitia Barbauld. A Unitarian intellectual, writer and lecturer on chemistry and mineralogy and from 1803–1808 the editor of the Annual Review, the journal for which Southey wrote before he became a regular contributor to the Quarterly Review.

George Baird (1761-1840): Church of Scotland minister and Principal of Edinburgh University. A gifted modern linguist, he also had a keen interest in education, especially schemes for the education of the poor in the Scottish islands and highlands. He was on good terms with Andrew Bell, persuading the latter to bequeath £5,000 for this purpose. In 1827 Baird wrote to Southey requesting that he write a poem, probably supporting Baird’s work as convenor of the Highlands and Islands Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

John Ballantyne (1774-1821): The younger brother of James, and a partner in the publishing firm with him and Scott.

James Ballantyne (1772-1833): Printer and schoolfriend of Walter Scott. He printed Southey’s Madoc (1805) and many of his subsequent poems. Ballantyne’s printing business, in which Scott had a secret share, became one of the most highly regarded and profitable of the first decade of the nineteenth century. In 1809 Southey agreed to provide historical material for the Edinburgh Annual Register, issued by the related publishing firm in which Ballantyne, Scott and Ballantyne’s younger brother John were partners.