If you're a person of consequence time travelling to early-nineteenth-century Portsmouth, UK, get yourself a letter of introduction to the proprietor of the local newspaper, man-about-town James Charles Mottley. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in Portsmouth awaiting a ship to Malta, was recommended to Mottley as a 'very, very particular friend' by Daniel Stuart of the London Morning Post, and in consequence moved from the Crown Inn to lodge comfortably and cheaply at Mottley's home. Coleridge described Mottley as 'a dashing bookseller' and 'a booted, buck-skin-breeched Jockey' who spared no pains to entertain his guest.

Mottley's attentions didn't end when Coleridge embarked for Malta. Coleridge's wife was to send letters for her husband to Mr Mottley at Portsmouth, and Mottley would forward them to Malta 'under Government covers'. What's more, they'd arrive sooner than if she sent them direct.  

I failed to discover why Mottley had access to the Government mail service, but I do know that his business interests included lotteries, insurance, patent medicine, and possibly prize agency. These enabled him to keep a second home – a modest but genteel cottage about ten miles from Portsmouth in the tiny parish of Blendworth. If he looked across the field behind his house he could see the equally modest home of a Royal Navy purser. Mottley and the purser had at various times unsuccessfully advertised their homes for sale, but in May 1820 the purser sold his house to Knighton, who was known to be George IV's favourite.

The following month Mottley readvertised his Blendworth home, capitalising on his prestigious new neighbour. He cited Knighton's choice of Blendworth as proof of the area's desirability, and tweaked the property description to portray his own country home as a mirror image of Knighton's.  But still no takers.

The 1860 (Old Portsmouth) Project: More than half a century after Coleridge's visit, but close enough for our purposes, and a joy to visit and use. The Crown Inn was 33-36 High Street. Mottley's town house was in St Thomas's Street, west of St Thomas's Church and parallel with the High Street. His newspaper premises were opposite Grand Parade. That makes them 75-77 or, more likely, No 81 from 78-81. No, I'm not going to check the rate books to find out. 

Scroll down each page for meticulously researched digital models, and go walkabout in 1860s Portsmouth.

William Godwin by James Northcote 1802
By kind permission of the National Portrait Gallery, London,  under creative commons licence http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw02604/William-Godwin?

After I'd published my biography of Knighton I discovered the award-winning website, William Godwin's Diary. It's a must-have resource for London 1788–1836 and, unfortunately, for William Knighton.

The link between Godwin and Knighton was their mutual friend, the painter James Northcote. In the summer of 1827 Northcote sent Knighton a list of appeals that he had received from people seeking Knighton's intervention on their behalf. Among them was one from Godwin, who successfully requested that his ailing brother be admitted to the Charterhouse. As I couldn't envisage Knighton and Godwin having much in common I attributed Knighton's actions to the Northcote connection, but it's possible that Knighton and Godwin had known each other for many years.

By 1825 Knighton declined invitations to dine because hosts expected him to divulge confidential information. So I hope it was 'my' Knighton whom Godwin noted at three dinners between 1809 and 1810. Two were held at the home of publisher Joseph Johnson. The other was 'at St Paul's', which I suspect meant Dolly's Chophouse. The guests were from diverse professions, well able to provide the intelligent conversation Knighton relished. And, as he had no influence at Court during those years, he would have been there on his own merits. 

I'm not going to research the other diners to see whether they met a Dr Knighton and what they thought of him. But I hope someone does.

Here are some of the men who attended the three dinners:
John Bonneycastle, mathematician
Thomas Cooper, actor
Sir Humphrey Davy, chemist
Henry Fuseli, artist
John Hewlett, biblical scholar
John Knowles, naval surveyor and biographer of Fuseli
William Hamilton Reid, writer