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.

Manuel Abella (1753-1817): Spanish scholar, historian and archivist. He was one of the secretaries to the commission that drew up the plans for the Cortes that met in 1810 and later served in that body as a deputy from Aragon. In 1810-1811 he was in London as secretary to the Duke of Albuquerque, the Cortes’s representative in the United Kingdom. At this time, Southey (who had been given an introduction to Abella by Henry Crabb Robinson) wrote to him requesting documents that might help with accounts of the Peninsular War Southey was producing for the Edinburgh Annual Register.

Edward Erasmus Atkins (d. 1820/1821?): In 1820–1821, Atkins wrote (anonymously) to Southey about the latter’s proposed ‘Life of George Fox and the Rise and Progress of Quakerism’. Southey replied, but Atkins died before the letter reached him; see New Letters of Robert Southey, ed. Kenneth Curry, 2 vols (New York and London, 1965), II, p. 222, n. 1, which contains the only definite information about Atkins.

Richard Boyle Adderley (d. 1857): A friend of Southey’s during his time at Westminster School. His family were from Innishannon, Co. Cork; in later life he was a barrister and civil servant.

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.

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.

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).

Joanna Baillie (1762-1851): Scottish poet and dramatist, best-known for A Series of Plays: In which it is Attempted to Delineate the Stronger Passions of the Mind (1798¬–1812), which Southey greatly admired. Baillie’s first plays and poems were published anonymously in 1790, and her authorship was not revealed until 1800. Her father, James Baillie (c.