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.

Louisa Charter (b. 1776): Sister of Emma Peachy and Elizabeth Charter (1782–1860), the friend and correspondent of George Crabbe (1754–1832; DNB). The three sisters were the daughters of Thomas Charter (1741–1810), a solicitor and estate manager, and Elizabeth Malet (1748–1804), of Bishops Lydeard, Somerset, a family known to Southey’s Aunt Mary, who lived nearby in Taunton. Southey first met Louisa Charter in Keswick in 1804.

John Chapman and Co: Merchant shipping company, whose offices were at 2 Leadenhall Street, London. In 1822 Southey used them to send a consignment of books to Copenhagen. Southey addressed his letter of 11 October 1822 to John Chapman, in the belief that the firm was still headed by its founder, John Chapman ‘of Whitby’ (1732–1822), though he had died on 5 January 1822. This Chapman was a Quaker and originally a supplier of canvas for sails, but his firm expanded under his ten sons into a leading shipping agent, insurer and bank.

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.

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.

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).

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.

George Canning (1770-1827): Contributor to the Anti-Jacobin, 1797–1798, and parodist there of Southey’s radical ballads. A Pittite in politics, Canning was Foreign Secretary 1807 until 1809, when he lost office after fighting a duel with another minister. In this capacity, he signed a treaty providing for the removal of the Portuguese court to Brazil, and sent British troops to the peninsula, though more tardily and in smaller numbers than Southey wished.

Henry ('Horse') Campbell (1774-1846): Clergyman. Educated at Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1792). A university friend of Southey’s, they did not keep in touch in later life. Their last meeting was at Falmouth in 1801, when Campbell was on his way to take up the living of St John’s in Antigua. Campbell was the illegitimate son of Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston (1739–1802) and swiftly returned from Antigua to England when he received a considerable legacy at his father’s death.