Daniel Stuart (1766–1846): Newspaper proprietor and journalist. Originally a printer, he bought the Morning Post in 1795 and turned it into the leading anti-government newspaper and a very profitable venture. Though he sold the Morning Post in 1803, he retained an interest in the Courier, which he acquired in 1800–1801, though it is disputed how much influence he had over the newspaper’s contents. Stuart employed Southey to write poems for the Morning Post at a guinea a week in 1798–1799, and again in 1801–1803.

George Strachey (1776–1849): Officer of the East India Company. Son of John Strachey. Educated at Westminster (adm. 1787) and Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1795; MA 1822). Writer EICS (Madras) 1796; Assistant in the Military, Secret and Political Department, 1798; Joint Assay Master, 1807; Private Secretary to the Governor, 1808; Judge and Magistrate of the Zillah of Cuddapah, 1809; Junior Secretary to Government, 1812; Chief Secretary, 1813; retired 1824. Strachey was Southey’s ‘substance’ (an older boy assigned to induct a new pupil into school rules and rituals) at Westminster School.

James Stanger (1743–1829): Member of a long-established Cumberland family, he had made a fortune in London as a partner in a firm of wholesale linen drapers and warehousemen, and bought an estate at Crosthwaite in 1810, where he built a new house called Dove Cote. He was on good terms with Southey and his family.

Hugh Chudleigh Standert (1782–1850): Surgeon at Taunton with literary inclinations, and a friend of James Montgomery. Standert was known to Southey through the latter’s extensive family connections in Taunton and the two men occasionally corresponded.

John Spedding (1770–1851): Of Mirehouse, near Keswick. A boyhood friend of Wordsworth who became a close friend of the Southey family.

Thomas Southey (1748–1811): Younger brother and at one time the business partner of Southey’s father, Robert Southey Senior. He was the beneficiary of the will of John Southey, to Southey’s envy and dismay, thus becoming a rich man. He spent his later years in Taunton, Somerset. Although unmarried, childless, and wealthy Thomas Southey was on distant terms with his brother Robert’s sons. Thomas Southey’s Will held no surprises — it cut his nephews off without a penny, ‘his last boast being ... that no one of his own name should ever be a shilling the better for him’.

Thomas (‘Tom'; 1777–1838)Sailor and farmer. Southey’s younger brother and the one to whom he was in the 1790s closest. Tom entered the navy as a midshipman at the age of 12, saw action in several major battles of the French revolutionary wars (including Cape St Vincent and Copenhagen), was captured on one occasion, wounded on several others, and was made a lieutenant as reward for his bravery in the fight between Mars and L’Hercule on 21 April 1798.

Sarah Southey (née Castle; 1782–1849): The daughter of a lawyer from Durham. She married Tom Southey in June 1810. Their nine surviving children were born between 1811–1824.

Robert Castle Southey (1813–1828): Son of Tom and Sarah; born 14 December 1813, died 20 July 1828.

Robert Southey, Senior (1745–1792): Southey’s father. A failed Bristol linen-draper, he was briefly imprisoned in 1792 ‘for a bill endorsed for a deceitful friend’. His release was secured by Elizabeth Tyler. He died in December 1792, after what his eldest son described as a ‘long’ decline.