Lady Margaret Beaumont (née Willes; 1756-1829): Daughter of Sir John Willes (c. 1721–1784), a landowner in Northamptonshire and MP. Her family had literary and artistic interests and she met Sir George Beaumont at a play reading at her home, Astrop Hall, in Northamptonshire. They were married on 6 May 1778. In 1782 a Grand Tour of Europe increased their keen interest in art – both Margaret and her husband sketched and they also painted in oils.

George Howland Beaumont, 7th Baronet (1753-1827): Art patron, landscape painter, and coal mine owner. He was a friend and patron of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Constable and Scott, inviting them to his estate at Coleorton, Leicestershire. Sir George was an enthusiastic amateur painter and owner of many Italian landscapes. Southey first met Beaumont in the Lakes in 1803 and corresponded with him and his wife.

Bernard Barton (1784-1849): Quaker poet. He was a clerk in Alexanders’ Bank in Woodbridge, Suffolk, and disliked travelling, but carried on an extensive correspondence with a number of men of letters, including Southey and Lamb. Barton asked for Southey’s help with some of his literary projects, but the two met only once, in 1824. His half-brother, the economist John Barton (1789–1852; DNB), married Ann Woodruffe Smith (d. 1822), the daughter of Grosvenor Bedford’s friend, Thomas Woodruffe Smith.

Charles James Barrington (1785–1825): Publisher, in partnership with J. Harris. In 1813 they suggested Southey should take up the continuation of John Campbell’s (1708–1775; DNB), Lives of the Admirals and Other Eminent British Seamen (1742–1744). Southey immediately declined the offer on the grounds of his inadequate knowledge of the subject.

Frederick ('Ginger') Barnes (1771-1859): Clergyman. A friend of Southey’s during his time at Westminster School and Oxford. In later life, Barnes held several livings in Devonshire.

Mary Barker (1774–1853): Author, painter and close friend of Robert Southey. Born in Congreve, Staffordshire, daughter of Thomas Barker, an ironmaster, and Mary Homfray. Author of A Welsh Story (1798), she moved in literary circles. She met Southey in Portugal in 1800 and subsequently visited the Southeys frequently in Bristol, London and Keswick. She was godmother to Southey’s first child, Margaret (d. 1803). Southey had a high opinion of Mary Barker’s talents and proposed that she should illustrate Madoc (1805). She appears as the ‘Bhow Begum’ in The Doctor (1834–1847).

Thomas Foster Barham (1766-1844): Writer. The third son of Joseph Foster Barham, he was educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, but left without taking a degree. His marriage to Mary Ann Morton in 1790 produced six children. He was associated with the mercantile house of Plummer & Co, but retired to the West of England in 1806 due to ill health, settling at Leskinnick, near Penzance.

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).

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.