William Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale (1757–1844): From 1802, when he inherited vast estates in Cumberland and Westmoreland, one of the wealthiest and most powerful landowners in the country. A Tory, Lowther became the patron of Wordsworth, arranging for him to be given the government post of Distributor of Stamps. Southey and Lowther were on good terms, and Southey made several visits to Lowther castle.

Augusta Lowther, Countess of Lonsdale (1761–1838): Born Lady Augusta Fane, daughter of John Fane, 9th Earl of Westmorland (1728–1774). In 1781 she married William Lowther, who became 1st Earl of Lonsdale in 1807; the couple had six children.

Robert Lovell, Junior (1795–1836): The son of Mary and Robert Lovell, his father’s early death left him with few prospects (significantly less than those of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s children, whose paternal relations were capable of greater generosity). In 1803 the money paid by the Lovell family for his education ceased. Southey and John May tried to get Robert Lovell Junior into Christ’s Hospital. They failed. The boy was apprenticed to a London printer and effectively separated from his mother, who lived with the Southeys in Keswick.

Robert Lovell (1771–1796): Poet. Born in Bristol, the son of a wealthy Quaker manufacturer (initially of cabinets and later of pins), and his first wife Edith Bourne, a Quaker minister. Lovell possibly entered the manufacturing business (on his death he was described as a pin manufacturer) but was ill at ease in the commercial world. In 1794 he married Mary Fricker. His family disapproved of the match because she was not a Quaker and had worked as an actress. Their son, also named Robert, was born in 1795.

See Fricker, Mary (1771–1862)

John Hill Lovell (1790–1855): Younger half-brother of the poet Robert Lovell. He was a commission agent and partner in the Bristol firm of Fisher, King & Lovell. In 1818 he wrote to Southey asking how to contact his (and Southey’s) nephew, Robert Lovell Jnr.

Lovell family: A family of Bristol-based Quakers and pin manufacturers. Robert Lovell (1746–1804) and his first wife Edith Bourne (1745–1782) had two sons, Joseph and Robert (Southey’s brother-in-law), and five daughters. Lovell’s second marriage to Lydia Hill (1754–1816) produced five more children. Southey was on reasonable terms with all the Lovells, but their relationship was clouded by struggles over adequate financial provision for the son and widow of Robert Lovell.

James Losh (1763–1833): Barrister. Second son of John Losh. Born at Woodside, Carlisle, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (BA 1786) and Lincoln’s Inn (called to the Bar 1789). He visited Paris in 1792 and on his return to England moved in a circle of metropolitan and Cambridge-based radicals and reformers that included George Dyer, William Godwin, John Horne Tooke (1736–1812; DNB), John Tweddell (1769–1799; DNB), Felix Vaughan (dates unknown), and William Wordsworth.

John Martyn Longmire (1781–1854): Rector of Hargrave, Northamptonshire, 1805–1818, and Curate of Westwood, Wiltshire, 1825–1851. Longmire was a well-connected evangelical clergyman, the nephew of Thomas Martyn (1735–1825; DNB), Professor of Botany at Cambridge University, 1762–1825. In 1812 Longmire wrote to Southey to thank him for the moral lessons and biblical parallels that could be drawn from Thalaba the Destroyer (1801), which had strengthened his faith. Southey was surprised and amused, but replied politely.

Thomas Norton Longman (1771–1842): Senior partner in a long-established and prestigious firm of London publishers. Southey began publishing with Longman and his partners in 1799 and their association continued until his final collection, Poetical Works (1837–1838). Southey often jokingly referred to the firm as ‘the Long Men’ or ‘Our Fathers’ (since their premises were in Paternoster Row). He also nicknamed Longman ‘Artaxerxes’ (465–424 BC) and ‘the King of Persia’ because the Persian emperor had been named Longimanus by the Romans.